


Dragon Rising

by selcouthcowboy



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Archmage Dragonborn, Bisexual Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, Canon Typical Racism/Misogyny/Violence/Ableism, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/M, Guildmaster Dragonborn, Harbinger!Kaidan, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inigo is A Bit More Serious Than In His Canon, Kaidan Skyrim, Life Debt to Lovers, Lore-Friendly Canon Divergence, Lucien Flavius Is There And We Love That, M/M, Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor M/M Romance, Minor Original Character(s), Modded Skyrim, Morally Ambiguous Dragonborn, Mutual Pining, Nightingale Dragonborn, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Political Dragonborn, Political Intrigue, Post-Thieves Guild Questline (Elder Scrolls), Reluctant Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, Romantic Soulmates, Sexual Tension, Skyrim Main Quest, Skyrim Plot But Make It Better, Skyrim Politics, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:14:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 75,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25008277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selcouthcowboy/pseuds/selcouthcowboy
Summary: *i was augustuswriting, am now selcouthcowboy*“I will go, if you want me to, Dragonborn,” I spoke just above a whisper, feeling the heat from her body radiate outwards, inhaling the smell of the sweat in her hair and the blood under her tunic. She only shook her head, placing the wine down on the heavy desk. Her fingers lingered for a moment, wrapped around the neck of the bottle.“What if I want you to stay?” she asked, shy under the hard mask of a young woman who defends the soft parts of herself with tooth and claw. I’d gladly bleed and bruise to feel the delicate parts of her, body yes, perhaps soul as well.🗡️🗡️🗡️Morwen Nox is an ambitious, doom-driven adventurer and skilled thief. Kaidan is a brooding bounty hunter with a mysterious past, and a life debt to pay. Their paths cross as the Thalmor narrow in on the Blades' presence in Skyrim, while tensions between two political powers continues to mount. As the pair grow close, whether it be by fate or something more human, the Season Unending approaches.
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn & Kaidan, Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Kaidan, Female Dovahkiin | Minor Romances, Kaidan Skyrim | Minor Romances
Comments: 16
Kudos: 52





	1. Scars and Storytelling

**Author's Note:**

> 2020-11-17: i'm taking a break from writing for now due to mental health stuff. i'll be back soon, thank you for reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morwen Nox breaks into a Thalmor den expecting to find evidence of their movements in Skyrim, but instead, she stumbles upon a man. Kaidan has been held captive by the Thalmor for months and interrogated about his only truly valuable possession; his dead mother's sword. The two destinies collide when Morwen decides to break her own rules and save Kaidan's life. In return, he feels indebted to her, and offers his sword to her service.

I woke to the click of an old lock. A wave of fresh pain slid down my spine to find that my unfortunate circumstances weren't a dream, just like the other hundreds of times I roused from a necessary sleep. Every other day or so, a Thalmor agent comes down those worn stairs and asks me questions I myself would like to know the answers to. I've been tortured and brought back to life with twisted magic for who knows how long, but my chances at getting out of this forgotten corner of Skyrim would rest with her.

I hung limp, chained to the wall in a wrought iron cell like the Thalmor had planned to cage a bloody dragon, not a bounty hunter, with nothing but an old sword to his name. As the rusted metal groaned and the door swung open, I gathered the strength to lift my head. To my surprise, I wasn't met with the haughty gaze of my Altmer captors, but a girl. Just barely past her twentieth winter, with hair as dark as the shadows around her. The cell was lit by a distant torch from further down the prison's dank hallways, but even in such a scarce light, I was captivated by her sharp features. I must be going absolutely mad, I posited, this was some sort of Thalmor trick. A sick illusion meant to break me further.

"When I get out of these chains, I'll kill you all myself," I growled, hearing my voice for the first time in days as it bounced off the damp stone walls. The girl, still low to the ground and barely as loud as a whisper as she moved towards me, only studied me with intense eyes, a hazy blue against the shadows of the cage that held me. She approached slowly, like a doe to a patient poacher, and soon was closely examining my wounds. I watched as she traced my scars, and then my face, with a vicious curiosity.

"I must say, you're not in a good position to be making threats." Her voice was like a spiced wine, sweet but as sharp as a knife when she spoke. She locked eyes with me, and I smelled no magic in the air between us, and there was no otherworldly gleam in her eyes like those of conjured beings. A faint smell of sweat and something earthy and warm, like an autumn bloom. She didn’t flinch when I strained against my shackles. I took a chance.

"You're not with the Thalmor, are you? Get these shackles off, quickly. Before more come," I nearly pleaded, tossing my head to the locks above my shoulders. The fine Elven locks glimmered new against the backdrop of the old prison walls. The key she clutched in her small, agile hands matched its copper make and color. I held my breath as she reached above me, and with two subtle clicks, the cuffs that dug trenches into my wrists flung open, and I collapsed to the stone floor. My body shuddered, pain washing over open wounds and bruises alike. I tried to rise to my feet as she watched, but I felt two warm hands on my quivering shoulders, and I let her guide me to the ground.

"This will help, please don't be afraid," the girl whispered, and her small palms soon became hot like sunlight, and I tried to jerk away. A second after, though, I felt a rush of relief down to my very bones, and in the faint light from the hall, I noted my wounds closing from her magic's influence. A split second of warm light flooded around her, and she held her hands to my bare skin for a moment longer before standing above me again. I attempted a thank you, but no sound escaped. The prison fell quiet as I slowly rose to my feet, with only our breathing and the dripping of some distant leak to keep us company.

"Thank you," my voice bounced off of the low ceilings, "I'm not sure how to repay you, but I'm happy to be free of my chains,” my voice trailed off as the girl occupied herself with dusting off her garb, a rather fetching ensemble for someone who makes a habit of breaking into dank prisons. Her gaze was no longer fixed on me, but on what looked like a blot of blood on her leather boots. When silence fell again, she looked up.

"Well, go on then, you're free to leave. I came in through that way," she nodded towards the hallway on the left, now adjusting the fit of her half-fingered gloves. 

"I was wondering," I began, now very aware of my general lack of a shirt. I felt a sort of jump behind my sternum as she raised a heavy brow at me. "I was wondering how you found me, is all, seeing as I've been locked up for ages and no one's come waltzing in quite like you have."

"I got a tip that some Thalmor agents were operating in the area. I...intercepted a correspondence about some new prisoners being transported here from Falkreath. The Aldmeri Dominion operating in Skyrim tends to chafe with my own personal interests."

"Oh, and what interests are those?" I inquired, enchanted for a moment before jumping at the sound of familiar footsteps.

"Let me handle this, you're not well," she hissed, placing a hand once again on my bare chest and making my pulse jump. The fire in her gaze wasn't something I was about to stoke, so I quietly crept back to the far corner of the cell and watched as she melted into the shadows nearest the cell door.

Cyrelian, the Thalmor agent that presided over my "investigation," sauntered down the worn steps that lead to the world above us. His jet black robes rippled in the light of his magefire he held expertly in his manicured palms to light his way through the hazy darkness of the prison.  
"What in the name of-" he began as he approached, his sharp eyes widening at the sight of the open door. He hadn't realized quick enough that he was outnumbered, and as he burst into the cell and locked eyes with me, the girl quickly leapt from the shadows and wrapped her slender arms around the willowy elf's form, slamming her hand over his gaping mouth with surprising grace. He didn't have a chance to exclaim or fight back, and as quickly as she had gotten the jump on him, her blade came to his throat and opened it onto the uneven brick floor. He hadn't even finished gurgling and clutching his open neck, as blood began to pool around him, before she had slicked the blood off of her dagger and slipped it back into its sheath on her thigh. I regretted that his end was clean. After all of the perverted things his magic had done to me, I often imagined killing him.

"Son of a bitch had it coming," I spat, adrenaline pumping through my still very new scars. I found myself out of breath despite standing by and doing none of the killing, for once. The woman stepped gingerly over Cyrelian's corpse and barely gave a second look as she started up the hallway.  
"Farewell, and don't get caught next time!" she sang as she gave me a wave over her shoulder. I stood still, stunned for a moment, before starting on weak legs I started after her.

"Wait, wait!" I called, wobbling barefoot along the mossy stone floor, passing cell after cell now empty of other Thalmor experiments and assets. I had been alone for months, and I'm not one to owe anyone. She turned around with a toss of her dark locks, I could see now in the torchlight it was tied half up and braided in some places. Her face was kissed with small freckles and a deep but old scar glistened on her cheek. 

"What's your name?" I caught up with her, clutching my side as a stitch formed.

"Morwen...Nox. I'd say I'm pleased to make your acquaintance but I'd like to leave this dank old ruin and you're very good at stopping me-"

"Morwen, I'm-" I huffed for a moment, catching her eyes. Her gaze was sharp but curious, almost hungry as she looked up at me.

“My name is Kaidan. I'm- I'd like to-I...I'd like to offer you my sword. I mean, if you'll let me," she raised an eyebrow at me once again and I caught my breath. "I'll find my belongings wherever the Thalmor hid them, and if you'll have me, I would like to repay this kindness as your shield, until you feel my debt to you is paid."

I watch as she considers my offer for a moment. I must look mad, I thought, as I stood wounded in front of her. Morwen sighed quietly and relaxed her shoulders, before giving a rather reluctant nod.

"Very well, Kaidan, I'll have you along," she spoke carefully, a slight regional accent curling her a's that I recognize from some distant memory. “Let's fetch your things, and then we've a few errands to run before I can take you home and look at you proper."

She continued up the hallway and ascended a flight of stairs. I recognized the path we take out of the prison from the my hazy arrival to this gods-forsaken ruin. Through a foul smelling burlap sack, I remembered seeing water flow down the old, endless flights of stairs, and hearing the sharp sizzling of flesh as prisoners who were now long dead endured vile magic at the hands of the Thalmor. As we rounded the corner of another short hallway, I narrowly dodged another Thalmor body, not yet cold but their time ended the same way as Cyrelian's. Something inside me fears what this willowy rogue is capable of, but I'm no stranger to the sour necessity of cutting lives short. At the top of the stairs and tucked into the far end of the prison's foyer is a large wooden chest that seems to be padlocked shut. On the table beside it was what looked like a ledger, and laid out like a specimen to study was my sword. A finely forged longsword, a dark grey steel with strange letters embossed onto the fuller and handle. My father always told me it was my mother's, and I intended to find out more.

"I imagine we'll find your things here, check that ledger to see if there's anything important in there. Look for names, dates, locations..." Morwen instructed as she crouched by the weathered chest, expertly handling two small iron picks and swiftly getting to work cracking the lock. She flicked a tress of hair out of the way of her finely-wrought cheeks as she worked, and I only just tore my eyes away as I approached the broad table. It was almost like my own arm was returned to me after being without it. I held the blade with two hands, as I had done my whole life, and tilted it down to inspect it for any damage. It nearly sang out as I picked its sheath off of the table as well and returned it to its dark leather reaches. I did as I was told next, as Morwen fiddled with the iron padlock, I flipped through the delicate parchment pages to see if anything caught my eye. I wasn't the best reader, but I could make out most of the fine cursive lettering. It was mostly dates of "arrests" and a log of prisoner belongings. I ran my thumb over the entry with my name written neatly in the pre-lined column. It listed my sword as my belongings, as well as my armor and bow. “Apprehended on the North East shore of what the locals refer to as 'Lake Illinalta'. Approach with caution, suspect is well-trained and a known associate of previous person of interest." As I flipped through the pages, my eye caught an entry dated for the 7th of Rain's Hand, 4E 202. By the Nine, had it really been an entire winter?

"Aye, what's the date?" I asked just as Morwen managed to pull the lock through its loop.

"Eleventh of Rain's Hand tomorrow, I believe," she answered cooly, pulling the heavy lid of the chest open with a huff and planting a hand on her hip as she looked inside. I expected my armor to be inside, but all that was left were a few plates from my tassets, and a snapped leather strap. I knelt down to dig through the chests' contents and felt my heart sink as I did so. There was no sign of the rest of my old gear, save for my gambison and travelling pack as well as my unstrung but otherwise untouched war-bow, Elven in make. It was a gift from an old friend, funny how those things follow you.

"Those bastards, they've destroyed my things," I hissed, perhaps louder than I meant to. Morwen looked down at me with a hint of sympathy, but quickly snapped upright as the aging stones around us began to whistle with the wind outside.

“We should get moving, the afternoon was waning when I snuck in, it’ll be evening by now.”

I sighed, and began gearing up with what was left of my things. I had lost more weight than I thought since the last time I slipped my gambison over my shoulders; it was loose everywhere and many of the straps didn't pull tight enough as I dressed. Within a few minutes, I was less bare than I was an hour before. I felt Morwen's gaze on my back, and she looked away from my scars as I turned to face her. She studied the page I had flipped to with hungry eyes, her brow furrowing as she read.

"These arrests were authorized by the Thalmor ambassador from Solitude, damn them," I was surprised at her curtness. Just as I slipped the strap for my scabbard around my shoulder, she closed the ledger with a resounding thunk, and conjured a ball of magefire in her off hand. I barely had time to protest as she brought the magefire to the dry pages of the old bound ledger.

"What do you think you're doing?" I snapped, moving to stop her from lighting the pages, but it caught and consumed the book before my eyes, just as magefire does.

"The Thalmor shouldn't have these records any more than we should be lugging them around. The note made in the ledger says that Lady Elenwen of the Thalmor Embassy requested a number of prisoners be transferred to another location, which I imagine is detailed within the embassy itself, so that's our goal. They seem to be getting good at collecting interesting people, and I want to know what she plans to do with those poor souls." The book smouldered and decayed into a pile of ash, and with it any evidence of my imprisonment was destroyed. Not that I would have gone to the law, but scars are such forgetful storytellers.

"Shall we?"

Not waiting for an answer, she started towards the final curving staircase that lead to a large wooden door. Through it's aging planks, waning daylight beckoned. It had been forever since the sun had touched my skin, and I felt an age-old spark of adventure rising in my chest as I followed the raven-haired girl up the stairs, the freedoms of Skyrim awaiting my return.


	2. Something Terrible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan makes camp with Morwen Nox, his new and mysterious traveling companion. Morwen senses that there's more to this hunter that meets the eye, but isn't sure how to approach him. A letter on a corpse proves to be a poor start to a conversation.

The old wooden door groaned as Morwen threw her weight at it. Slowly, against her iron will, it opened, and the dying light of dusk kissed my face for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Before us raged a waterfall, and the door that we walked through was embedded in an old cobblestone tower that was now surrounded by eroded stone. The prison’s old entrance was crumbling into the river below as the current carved through it. Without a hint of hesitation, Morwen had already waded halfway across the water a ways upstream, far away from the cliff that the river fed from. I could see the path she had taken down, as if the riverbed knelt before her. I followed her through the cold current and stumbled a few times as she scaled some smooth stones that lined the path above us. After some struggling to keep up, we arrived upon the worn cobblestone road heading South to Ivarstead. I recognized this place instantly as near the Stony Basin of The Rift. It was familiar in ways I couldn’t quite place, but comforting all the same. I dusted myself off and granted myself a last look at my former cage, watching how the waterfall cascaded past it and slowly erased it from the face of the rock.

“You seem upset,” Morwen noted.

“Not upset, just,” I paused. Perhaps it was that she was the only woman I had seen in months, but Morwen Nox may just be the most enchanting woman I had ever laid my eyes upon. I stared a bit too long at the sunset framing her willowing form and strong shoulders, as a feeling long forgotten roused in my chest, or perhaps somewhere else. I decided to keep this thought to myself, as what was becoming a thematic eyebrow was raised at me as I gawked. I cleared my throat.

“Saying goodbye, as funny as that sounds,” I said plainly, “where are we headed, then?”

Morwen shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked upon the horizon with lips downturned.

“Ivarstead is about a morning’s ride from here, we won’t make it for nightfall,” with a polite clearing of her throat, she brought her fingers to her mouth and whistled loudly. I began to ask, before my question was answered by the sound of thumping hooves that was reminiscent of a thunderstorm. Down the hill from the South came a beast only Skyrim could produce; a horse as thick as a horker and twice as tall came to her call like a well trained hound, and even tossed its head at the sight of her. Its coat was a glossy, deep brown, and its mane was cropped to an inch or so. Upon its back was a saddle and bedroll, as well as some leather saddlebags and a quiver full of arrows as black as night.

“You do know how to ride, yes?” Morwen received the great beast with outstretched hands, as it came to a halt with its head in her palms. I nodded, and she granted me a smile. Sharp like wind and as white as marble, her smirk cut through the dusky purple evening. The air was hazy - it seemed spring had already made itself comfortable, and night was sure to be cold.

“Come, you can ride Weir if you want. He’s as friendly as they come, and you should rest for a while until I can get you home to treat you properly. Some of those wounds won’t stay closed forever. I’m a better healer than I am a mage.”

Morwen gave Weir a nuzzle on his velvety nose before tossing his reins over his fat neck and holding him steady for me. I felt as if I shouldn’t be letting this stranger lead me away to who knows where, but by the Nine, I was so very tired. I stuck my foot into the stirrup and hauled my leg over Weir’s wide back, quietly settling into the creaking leather seat. My muscles ached, and my eyelids fluttered slightly. Silently, Morwen started off on the cobbled path, leading Weir by the reins and taking me with her. The clopping of Weir’s hooves was almost enough to put me to sleep, were it not for the pain returning to my closed wounds and the subtle feeling of unease that comes with Skyrim’s open roads.

“We ought to make camp, I can barely keep my eyes open,” I called up to my new companion sometime later, her form barely visible in the pale starlight. Her scent traveled up to me as well, and I found myself hungry and parched as the smell of some sort of berry drifted from her hair.

“We’re almost to a clearing, we’ll stop there for the night.” 

I agreed silently, and it was almost as if I blinked and Weir came to a stop in a clearing with bare trees and reddish soil. Weir pawed at the ground and began making quick work of whatever grass was left, and I took at as leave to dismount and leave him to it. The clearing had a charred spot at the near center, and some stray rocks around it, implying that someone had been here before. Sliding quickly out of the saddle, Morwen rounded Weir’s massive form at the same time and I nearly bowled her over. I apologized profusely, but she didn’t seem to mind. In a matter of minutes, there was a fire in the abandoned pit that she conjured and fed with branches from around the clearing, and an extra bedroll was laid out for me as well as her own. The night was brisk as they come, but the fire started to soothe some of my aching. I laid on my furs, drifting in and out of sleep, but I kept my blade close to me. As calm as the Rift may be, vagabonds and lowlifes still roamed her steep hills and rolling forests.

Even though I had fallen asleep to Morwen’s quiet humming, and the sound of her counting and polishing a few coins from her pocket, I awoke to silence. Weir’s snorting was a ways away, but close enough to hear. Other than that, stillness. The light from the fire was all but gone and the moons above were shy and distant. I blinked a few times, before the snap of a twig woke me up completely. I shot up, scrambling for my sword as I rose off of my furs and turned to face the source of the noise.

A dark face with a sinister smile peered out from behind Morwen, who was held in this stranger’s grasp a few feet from her bedroll, further into the shadows of the night. A knife that looked like it was meant to kill chickens was held to her throat, but still she struggled to get free from the stranger’s strong grip.

“I’ll only tell you this once. Let my friend go, and walk away,” I growled, blade now in front of me, both hands gripping the hilt. I hazarded a couple steps forward. The stranger had a gloved hand over Morwen’s mouth, and she struggled silently with her legs to gain leverage over her attacker. The stranger said nothing, but instead moved to bring the blade across Morwen’s unguarded neck.

I acted as quickly as I could, lunging forward with deadly accuracy. Morwen’s eyes widened as she gave a final kick to tip her assailant forward just enough so I could attack. I plunged my sword into their shoulder, and she took the chance to break free just as the stranger cried out in pain from the blow, releasing their grip from around her neck. I pulled my blade back, and with a quick swipe to the chest, it was over. The attacker bled out for longer than their life remained in their body, and they quickly fell limp against the steep hillside.

We stood there breathing heavily for a moment. I scanned the treeline for any more threats, but it seemed this one was solitary. Morwen reached up and wiped blood from a small gash on her jaw, before slowly looking up to meet my gaze.

“You just saved my life,” she stated after a few silent minutes. Swiftly, she rifted through the attacker’s pack. They wore a strange-fitting set of black leather, designed to blend seamlessly into the backdrop of the deep night. There was only a small satchel around their person, and from it, Morwen pulled a small folded piece of parchment.

“It’s a description of me,” she started, eyes scanning the paper at an incredible speed. “Someone’s contacted the bloody Brotherhood to take me out.” She almost sounded amused, and as she read it over again, she even let out a short laugh. “You’d think they’d give up after a while,” her sentence trailed off, and she wobbled over to her bedroll before collapsing with a soft thunk. A few moments passed, and she restored the fire in the pit to a content rippling thing, warm and invigorating. I sat down close to her bedroll, but not daring to be within arms length. I began with a slight cough, before glancing up at her face as she focused on the flames.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked gently, ignoring the gurgling of my stomach as my hunger grew. She gave me a soft laugh.

“I don’t know you,” she said finally, tossing the note into the flame and staring intently as it crumpled and dissolved into nothing.

“Nor I you, but you helped me all the same,” I offered, hoping she hadn’t noticed the distance between our two cold bodies.

“I’ve…done something terrible,” her jet black hair was completely undone now, and it hung like a curtain in front of her carved features. I shifted slightly, though not quietly, and the silence was worse for it.

“Can’t be that terrible, I don’t see any hell gate opening to swallow you whole,” I attempted a joke, and to my surprise, she granted me another smile. It fell quickly though, and she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she continued.

“I’ve hurt a lot of people,” she began, speaking slowly as she chose her words. “You don’t get where I am without stepping on others. It’s…it’s not something I’m proud of,” I stoked the fire with a stray branch, leaving room for her to continue. She didn’t, instead she leaned back on her slender arms and reached into her knapsack that was set out near her things. A mean-looking black bow was among her affects, and it glinted like midnight. Out of her bag, she pulled a pair of hazy brown bottles and a lump covered in cloth. She handed me a bottle, and unfolded the cloth to show a wedge of an off-white cheese that I found familiar instantly.

I took the bottle in hand and uncorked it, and the smell of honey and yeast filled my mouth immediately. I nearly finished the bottle and hiccuped once I took a breath, only looking up to see Morwen offering me a chunk of cheese and some bread she had broken. It smelled like rosemary and goatsmilk.

“I used to get something like this from a woman I knew in The Reach,” I said as I took a glorious bite. It had been at least a day since I had last eaten. Not the furthest I’d gone but certainly not what I was used to. “She runs a farm just outside Markarth with her old hackit of a husband. Would always love a visit, but I never understood why Brynjar never came with me when I was sent to buy supplies,” I was lost in reminiscing, and I looked up to see her listening intently, taking an occasional swig of mead.

“Salvius is her name,” she said finally, offering me another chunk of bread as I finished the first. “She never lets me leave when I visit, old bag.”

“Salvius! That’s it!” I remembered the green moors of The Reach, and the harsh white stone of Markarth jutting out from the landscape. It was like a distant, hazy dream. We both laughed, and I felt her gaze again after a moment.

“So, is it cheese that brings you to Skyrim, Kaidan?” she asked finally, tilting her head slightly. I began to say something, but the thought got lost on the way out. I finished the bottle of mead but held it close still, and soon after I finished the food she handed me. I ran out of things to fiddle with, so I answered.

“No, no it’s… it’s personal-” I started. Morwen looked confused for a moment, and in the glow from the campfire, I saw a mask return to her chiseled face.

“I see, I apologize.” As quickly as she can say goodnight, she curled back up in her bedroll and I’m left sitting with an empty bottle in my hand. Perhaps it was for the best, drink never did me much good.

I didn’t sleep for the rest of the cold night, and when the birds began to sing in the morning, I rose to my feet and visited Weir down the path a bit. He was grazing on a patch of long, dry grass at the base of one of The Rift’s many golden Aspen trees, and I spent the sunrise patting his muscled neck and tearing grass out for him to take from my open palm. I listened to the stillness of the morning, and waited for her to wake.


	3. What Makes You Worthy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan finds out more details about the enchanting Morwen Nox, much to her embarrassment. The pair travel through Ivarstead and into Whiterun, where Morwen's social standing becomes clear. Kaidan is given a gift. Morwen tends to Kaidan's wounds and invites her into her home, debating if her feelings for Kaidan are convenient or personal.

A frightening dream woke me sometime in the morning. I shot up in my bedroll, expecting my strange companion to be there. Kaidan was nowhere to be seen, and a part of me was grateful. It was childish of me to expect anything reminiscent of friendship from the people I helped, and believing he’d stay the night was just foolish. He must have taken off after I had huffed off to sleep, and that was probably for the best. The wilds of The Rift surrounded me, and I settled back into my solitude just as I had done countless times before. I had a delivery to make and payment to collect in Ivarstead as well as an errand to tend to for the Priestess in Whiterun. I simply did not have time for a dashing man with a mysterious past on the run from the Thalmor. It really was not as alluring as it sounded, I decided. I was lying to myself, of course, as I felt my heart skip when I spotted him coming up the incline below the camp. I sat up a little straighter, and silently chastised myself as I adjusted my hair before he spotted me.

“I figured I’d fetch breakfast before you woke, though I’m certainly a little rusty,” he called to me, holding a bushel of dead pheasants in his large fist. To my surprise, my mount wasn’t far behind him, and Weir even tossed his meaty head when he saw me. Traitor.

“I…thank you,” I said, finally snapping out of a morning daze as Kaidan knelt by the exhausted fire pit, gently placing his kills on the stone next to the charred fuel. I rose to my feet and busied myself with collecting branches to renew the campfire. Kaidan was quiet, and I was thankful. Within minutes, we sat silently as a fire crackled on in between us. Without being asked, he had prepared a lean chunk of meat and handed it to me, as well as a small handful of greens from the surrounding bushes. After eating traveling rations for at least a week, I found myself comforted by the warm meal and the company. As he gently wrapped up and stowed leftovers, I spoke up.

“How are you feeling, Kaidan?” I asked rather meekly, keeping my hands busy as I returned my weapons to their various sheaths and pockets on my person. I felt his russet-coloured eyes on me, but I wasn’t prepared to meet them. There was something intimate about his looking at me, I hadn’t quite pinpointed it yet.

“I’m doin’ alright,” he began. His voice was deep and warm, and tinged with a traveler’s accent. “More concerned about you, to be honest.”

“I’m…I’m doing well,” I decided, putting on a charismatic smile and defusing the pricking of tears in my eyes with a few slow blinks. I was not well, but I won’t talk about it if he won’t. A Brotherhood contract on my life was certainly not a small matter, but with my assailant dead, surely there’s less cause for concern. It would be weeks, perhaps months, until whomever dispatched the assassin would find out that the job wasn’t completed. It seemed I had lost myself in thought, because when I looked up from tightening my knapsack to my back, Kaidan had already begun securing the bedrolls to Weir’s wide saddle. Underneath all of the camping gear was a thick canvas sack filled with pelts that needed to be delivered to the woman who runs the lumber mill in Ivarstead. So begins the day’s travels and annoyances.

“You really should be gentle with that shoulder,” I said as he groaned with a final tug of a strap. “We’ll be back in Whiterun by the day’s end, and I’ll take a look at it then.” Kaidan began to say something, but when I shot a look, he seemed to agree silently. And with that, I extinguished the fire that still crackled weakly in the pit with a bit of magic, and took Weir’s reins in hand. “You’re free to ride, still, I won’t make you walk in your state. Ivarstead is still a bit away.” Kaidan shook his head.

“Don’t you worry about me, not the first time I’ve been in a bad way,” he offered a smile, wide lips parting like a slash in the firmament. In the golden light raining down through the canopy of trees overhead, he could have been a noble or a Legate, were it not for the filth that coated his skin and coat. He had near-black, pinstraight hair that crept past his shoulders, tamed only by a half-bun at the back of his head, with a matching beard that was understandably unkempt. Almond-shaped eyes that were framed by heavy, furrowed brows were set into his strong face, and I was surprised to find them looking gently down at me. It wasn’t uncommon to see intricate patterns tattooed on the hardy skin of Skyrim’s people, but his was unlike any I had seen. It was blood red, and shaped almost like some long lost language. It dominated his right cheek and temple, framing his eye and complimenting his rich, perhaps once bronze skin. He looked better than he did the day before, and as he basked in the sunlight, it looked like it had missed him as much as he missed it. As he turned his gaze towards the steep mountain path, I noticed how drawn I was to his stark features.

I nodded, and began up the incline towards the village, leading Weir by his leather lead behind me. Kaidan followed; he moved heavily but swiftly, matching my pace with precision and care. An hour and a bit passed, and we came up the hill and into the humble farmhouses and breezy croplands of Ivarstead, sitting cozy in its nest of Aspen trees. To the North end of the settlement was a bridge that lead directly to the Seven Thousand Steps, and the massive mountain that holds High Hrothgar, the monastery that I’ve yet to enter. Months ago, after Whiterun’s guards had taken a dragon down from the sky, I found out that I had an ancient blood inside of me; Dragonborn. When the Greybeards called me to their great mountain, I had all but gone through the front door. I don’t feel ready, but I feel my destiny looming over me like a storm. Every few weeks, I make the climb again to deliver supplies for a local man named Klimmek, hoping the next time will be the time that I knock on those ancient iron doors.

“I’ve got a few things to do here, will you stay with Weir?” I asked stiffly, turning to face my traveling companion.

“Aye, don’t be long,” Kaidan responded dutifully, and with that, I pulled the pelts out from the rest of my cargo, and as Kaidan took the horse’s reins, I headed up the hill a moment to find Temba outside of her mill. She said something terse, but I wasn’t paying attention. She plopped a small coin purse in my hand, which I tucked away, before setting towards the docks to find Klimmek where he always was - his fishing line plunked into the meandering river that ran through the village as I approached, and he only stopped whistling some old tune when he heard me approach.

“Ah, you’re back, how was the trek?” his gruff voice cut over the sound of the water cascading down the rocks.

“I didn’t go in, if that’s what you’re asking,” I scrunched my nose at the Nord, who seemed unbothered by my attitude as usual. “I’ll go in once you speak to Fastred, seeing as that’s equally as frightening for you.” Klimmek had feelings for the farmer’s daughter, and he wasn’t exactly subtle about stealing glances of her as they went about their days parallel to each other. A little nudge is all it would take for their lives to intertwine again, but Klimmek refused to act as romantic as he felt.

“You Bretons are always too sharp for your own good,” he wagged a gnarled finger at me, before procuring a small sack that jingled with coins from his satchel with his off hand. “Those Greybeards won’t know what’s comin’ for them.” He held his fishing rod lazily in one hand, and with the other he gave me a little curtsy.

“For you, Lady of Dragons,” the old Nord teased, tossing the sack of gold at my chest. I shot him a look before turning back towards the main road, to find Kaidan waiting for me up the docks, with my horse in tow.

“What was that about?” he asked, cocking a heavy brow at me as I started towards the road out of town.

“I deliver supplies to the monks up on the mountain sometimes. Klimmek pays me,” I stated, gathering Weir’s reins from Kaidan’s weathered hands.

“I always wondered if I’d ever climb the Seven Thousand Steps, they say Kyne blesses you if you pray at each of her altars on the way up,” Kaidan mused, staring off into the sea of bright yellow aspens ahead of us. Even though it was mid-spring, Riften’s surrounding forests lay in a perpetual golden state like a blanket of rich autumn tones. The smell of decaying leaves and sharp air stayed all year round.

“That part is true, though most don’t climb all the way up,” I felt as surprised as Kaidan looked when he expressed his admiration.

“Kyne must smile on you then, that’s a gift, y’know,” his gentle eyes felt warm and encompassing as he met mine.

“More than you know,” I replied. “We still have a lot of ground to cover yet, would you mind riding with me?” I already had my foot in the stirrup, and as I hoisted myself over Weir’s girth, I extended a gloved hand to a confused looking Kaidan.

“Not at all, though this is a first,” he sounded amused, and I almost felt like I was enjoying the company. I gave a smile, which he returned as he swung his muscled leg over the back of the saddle. Weir gave a huff in protest, but set off quickly with a squeeze of my legs nonetheless, starting fast and bounding over the bridge and towards the mountain pass. Kaidan let out a chuckle in surprise as Weir gained speed, and my heart practically caught wind and flew behind as he briefly laid his hands on my waist to steady himself. I could feel the warmth of his body behind me, perhaps a little more so in the cutting winds as we headed towards Whiterun.

We rode nearly nonstop for a few hours, with only a brief rest and a crossing of spotted deer on the path just south of Riverwood. The afternoon was a beautiful and warm, and the forests and rivers of Skyrim felt more like home than usual today. Kaidan was mostly silent, though his occasional comment was a comforting sensation. It had been weeks since I travelled with a companion, and my Imperial friend Lucien is hardly relaxing company. An eager man barely big enough for his boots when I met him, he became a seasoned adventurer while under my wing. I travelled home to Skyrim without him a handful of weeks prior, after he wished to continue his studies in Skyrim’s distant sister island of Solstheim. Since returning, I couldn’t help but feel a dread growing in my gut, like something terrible was taking place there. I was no stranger to odd dreams, but staying there was something else entirely. As we trotted down the path out of the valley and past a small Nord village, Whiterun came into view in the distance. Her golden plains rolling and rising like a sea of grass, and the smell of livestock was quick to follow the enchanting sight.

“It’s been quite a number of years since I’ve seen the peaks of Dragonsreach this close,” Kaidan commented, letting out a long sigh. “What business did you say you had here?”

“I didn’t say, but I have one more delivery to make. The priestess in town sent me to fetch a rare item, and I’d like to ensure it’s delivered before The Second Planting Festival.” He didn’t have much to say to that, and just as well. Weir trotted up to the stable shed, where a handful of deep brown steeds grazed in the adjacent pen. The stable master greeted me with a grin from under a huge handlebar moustache, and he took the reins from me as Weir came to a heavy stop.

“Always a pleasure, Lady Morwen,” Skulvar patted Weir on the neck as Kaidan slid off of the saddle.  
“What brings you to Whiterun? Last I saw you, you were headed for Riften.”

Kaidan offered his hand as I dismounted, which I ignored, before plopping a handful of septims in the old stablemaster’s rugged palm.

“Danica asked me for some ingredients from north of the Basin, and I’m here to deliver them,” I straightened out my waistcoat, before catching a glimse of the black filly Skulvar had been raving about before I left, grazing on a large pile of hay close to the wooden fence.

“She’s breathtaking, isn’t she?” Skulvar stroked his moustache in admiration at his own mare, “I’ve been training her for weeks, she’s the fittest steed ever to come out of Maidenloom Stables - excepting your beast of course.” I looked at Kaidan, who looked quite exhausted. I knew a sale when I was being roped into one, and the filly was rather tempting.

“How much for her? I can take her off your hands today.” I offered, keeping pace with the old man as he lead Weir under the sunshade by the paddock.

“Today, eh? A thousand septims. She comes with that saddle, I had it made for her.” Skulvar groaned as he sunk into the old chair by the farmhouse, and Kaidan had wandered over to lean on the old fence. I said nothing, but instead looked down at the old man with soft eyes, slightly cocking my brow.

“Ah,” he tossed a hand slightly as if brushing something away, “Seven hundred, sound fair? You must have some Imperial in you.” I counted out the coin and waited for the deed, and shortly after Skulvar handed me a folded piece of parchment adorned with a yellow wax stamp, Kaidan piped up.

“Looks like the sun’s waning, we should get that errand finished.” He noted gently, clearing his throat but catching another sentence on his lips when Skulvar called from back in his chair as we made for the city gates.

“Come back in an hour, I’ll have her shinin’ for you, my lady!” I gave him a courteous smile and a wave, and Kaidan didn’t speak again until we were nearly at the large wooden doors to Whiterun.

“Lady, aye? Have I been knocking around with an aristocrat?” I felt embarrassed, for some reason. It felt silly holding titles like some poncy Nord noble. I was young for the title of Thane and even younger to hold a handful of Thaneships. My peers were old men with grudges against the Empire and Stormcloaks alike. I let out a polite laugh, hoping to avoid a conversation about it, but the guard at the gate gave Kaidan an answer before I knew what to say.

“It’s a pleasure to have you back, Thane,” the surly guard dressed in Whiterun’s colors saluted as we approached. My face burned slightly as the massive doors groaned open. Kaidan almost looked like he might burst into a fit of laughter, but was silent as we passed through the massive arch into the marketplace. Whiterun bustled with various merchants hollering about their wares, clanking of anvils and creaking of looms, and the laughter and conversation of the people. The Jester’s Festival was still weeks away, but clothiers and hatmakers shops were stocked full of silly hats with bells sewn onto the pointed hoods and colourful shawls and scarves for the occasion. A gaggle of children barely avoided colliding with Kaidan as they carried on with their games at a sprint, and the bustle of the market was only rivalled in volume by a troupe of bards relaxing and plucking at their instruments by the well further up the street.

“Well, after you, my Thane,” Kaidan gave a mock curtsy but seemed to regret it instantly, as a wave of pain washed over his face and he groaned slightly.

“I’ll have you home soon, don’t you go expiring on me now,” I jested, but he said nothing. We continued up the streets through to the Cloud district, which was mostly large family houses. At the end of the wide street was a sort of rotunda, with the Gildergreen standing barren at its center. The temple sat just before that, its timber peaks mirroring that of Dragonsreach just beyond up the massive staircase. Kaidan followed dutifully as I said polite hellos to citizens as I passed. Many of the Nords that lived here towered over me in their Northern splendor, much like Kaidan did, but I still received the same respect as I would have if I was born to their lofty height and fair hair. 

I went to open the temple doors as we approached, before I turned back to check on my companion. He hadn’t followed me up the short path to the temple’s doors.  
“I’ll stay out here, I’m… not really the religious sort,” he shook his head slightly, and I nodded.

“Suit yourself,” I said with an eyebrow raised, before pushing the double doors open before me. A wave of incense and floral smells met my nostrils as I entered the quite atrium of the temple. Around the various altars and pools filled with crystal clear water lay Whiterun’s sick and wounded lucky enough to make it here. Danica, the priestess, was busy tending to the war’s casualties, hence my running around in dangerous caves and groves on her behalf. She greeted me with a smile when she saw me standing in the entryway, wiping her hands on a nearby rag as she finished changing bandages.

“Morwen! You’ve made it back, do you have the sap?” her face, though hidden slightly under a veil of modesty traditional for a priestess, was visible - kindly and wrinkled. Her freckled cheeks shone as the sun coming though the skylight hit her face.

“I do, though I daresay the mother tree was not pleased with me.” I reached into the pack on my hip and produced a small vile of a glistening, thick syrup from the Eldergleam tree. A few days before finding Kaidan, I had ventured into a grove in the depths of Eastmarch to find the sap of the old tree and nearly got my face ripped off by angry Spriggans. It was explained by the kind priestess that the sap may aid in the healing of Whiterun’s tree, and I was happy to help. Especially if it took my mind off of the dragon business.

I gingerly handed the bottle over, and she began to reach into her satchel for payment.  
“No need, Danica. Keep your coins.” I gave her a soft smile, before snapping the button on my own satchel closed.

“You’re too kind, milady. Will you at least take some supplies? I’ve just pruned the garden and I have more bushels of flowers than I know what to do with.” I nodded politely, and left the temple with a pile of healing herbs wrapped carefully in some linen, which I tucked away carefully once outside.

Kaidan was waiting patiently, and by his tired eyes and pained posture I could find no reason to torture him further with errands. We made our way out of the city and down the slope to the stables just outside it, where Skulvar had the black filly and Weir ready near the road.

“She’s all saddled up, let me know how she treats you, Thane,” the old man gave a final smile as I took the younger horse’s lead confidently, before thrusting them into Kaidans hands.

“You’re not riding on my horse ever again, you’re a terrible passenger,” I joked, giving a small chuckle in his stunned silence. I remembered the way his large palms wrapped around my hips so effortlessly, and heat blossomed on my cheeks.

“You’re jokin’,” Kaidan started, lips parted and expression positively aghast.

“Well don’t look so pleased, I might find it in me to be kind more often.”

“Morwen, I- I can’t pay you back for this,” he wrapped his fingers around the leather reins, and looked up at the stout mare despite his protesting.

“I’m not expecting you to, consider it a gift,” I insisted, perhaps a little harder than I meant to. I would never understand modesty as long as I live, and this man had a lot of it. 

“Thank you, I’m-I’m at a lost for words, to be honest.” Kaidan brought a hand gently to the horse’s nose, and she gladly nuzzled his palm in search of a treat.

“Let’s get you home, can you ride okay on your own?” I was already in my own saddle, now considerably more comfortable without Kaidan struggling to keep space in between our bodies.

“We’ll find out, I suppose.” With that, we were off. He pulled himself into the saddle and kept pace skillfully as I took off at a lope towards my home. I had property in the city, but I didn’t like the bustle all that much. As we approached Elysium Estate, the sun hit the horizon in a burst of reds and oranges in a spectacular display. I wonder if Kyne enjoyed showing off, because among the soft, tall grasses of Whiterun’s plains and the cool breeze of spring, it was if she had created this moment just for me. Kaidan called up to me as we approached the Estate, and I nodded at the guard by the road before responding.

“Any more surprises, my lady?”

“If I told you, they wouldn’t be surprises anymore!”

The gate swung open with a flick of my off hand, and I carefully trotted into the barn shed next to the house. Weir tossed his fat head when I dismounted, and I made a point to pat his shoulder before I went about untacking. Kaidan pulled in a moment after me, and the filly obediently stayed where she halted as he carefully dismounted.

“I’m beginning to think this might be some strange dream,” Kaidan brushed his dark hair out of his eyes as he took in the property. There was the main house in the center of the plot, and walls around the edges. The shed was a few steps from the house and held a handful of stalls, plus an adjacent paddock that stretched about an acre westward. Two of my other steeds were grazing in the hazy evening, flicking their tails back and forth to rid their rumps of flies. I had a handful of cattle and a few goats as well, all lazily resting in the dirt in the evening breeze. The home itself was built much like Dragonsreach, but much smaller. It had a large peaked timber roof, and a garden that surrounded it. The forge smoked constantly at the back of the property, and an outdoor bath sat next to it. As far as I knew, the home was as old as the city itself, and it was handed down to me from the aging caretaker. She told me, in a soft and distant voice, that Elysium was always the home of Kyne’s champions. I visited her headstone at the edge of the property when I had the time.

I set Weir’s tack up on its post and aided Kaidan in untacking his mount as well. I invited him to follow, and swiftly unlocked the doors to the house and beckoned him inside.

“Don’t you worry about your boots, just give me a moment and I’ll clean you up.” The high ceilings of the home were covered in greenery, and just as I left it, the lanterns and fireplaces were void of light. While I was away, the house slumbered. I’d fetch my things from Weir’s saddlebag tomorrow. I slipped off my coat and fur, before kicking off my boots and tossing my gloves aside. Kaidan said nothing, but instead took in his surroundings with a sleepy sort of wonder.

“You have a fine home, I’m thankful for your kindness,” he said finally, facing me like a storm to an unguarded crop. I tucked a stray hair behind my ear, and cleared my throat after keeping his gaze for perhaps a moment too long.

“This way, we’ll get those wounds clean,” I led him to the bedroom and ran the water from a tap in the wall. I imagine when the house was built, the marble basin was carved out around the spout and the water source was enchanted to flow always, like fountains I had seen in old Dwemer ruins. The water was always warm and clear, and while the tub filled, I quickly changed from my leather trousers and filthy blouse, to a simple tunic and apron. I pulled out some extra robes that might fit him, though I couldn’t imagine how any fabric fits around his muscled form. He was quiet still, and when I had returned from fetching the herbs I received from the temple, I found him struggling to undress himself.

“I don’t mean to be a burden-” he started, clearly frustrated as he strained to undo the various leather buckles that secured his gambeson. I swiftly undid the buckle he was struggling with, and met his eyes once again to a feeling almost akin to being surrounded by fire. I tried to smile, but something about him looking at me made me feel like I was frozen in time, so I just held his gaze, praying I wouldn’t burn.

“I can help you,” I whispered, as gently as I could, and he let me.


	4. Master of Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morwen mends Kaidan's wounds, and leaves him to bathe and dress. Kaidan relaxes with Morwen and her Khajiit co-adventurer, Inigo. Morwen leaves a rather drunk Kaidan with some predictable physical urges.

"Bloody hell! " I hissed through teeth locked together as Morwen gently blotted old blood away from a wound on my shoulder. When I was imprisoned, the Thalmor interrogator thrust an iron rod from his kit of hellish tools through the joint, and I felt the ache deep in my muscles and out towards the exit wound. The girl had sat me down in a shallow bath and was hard at work mending my injuries.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as she stopped a new wave of blood from leaking out of me. I felt like I might pass out, were it not for my heart galloping in my chest as Morwen's gentle form hugged mine. She sat behind me in a cotton tunic that hung loosely over her curves. The warmth of her body made my tired muscles shake, and I tried to breathe through it as I felt her sloping chest press against my shoulder blades.

"I don't like this any more than you do," she scolded me, and I cursed the clearness of the water as my excitement got more difficult to contain. She didn't seem to notice, and once a poultice had been applied and a few excruciating stitches had been tied off, I was left to wash myself and dress. I got a good look at her bedroom as I enjoyed the sweet smell of soap for the first time in who knows how long. It was a simple farmhouse once, but the space was almost out of a dream. Vines crept up the walls and covered the ceiling, and I noticed some gentle, flickering magelights in the canopy over her four-poster bed. I always hated magic, but there was something beautiful about the graceful flickering that lit the room. A dresser sat against the one wall with a basin of water atop it, with various bottles and jars littered around it. In another corner, an armor stand stood adorned with a familiar set of leather armor - a thief's uniform. Tricky minx.

I must have sat for at least an hour as my aches melted away in the hot water. Once my fingers started to prune and the water began to cool, I stood and dried myself before dressing in the clothing Morwen left for me. It was a simple, dark tunic and breeches that just barely fit, and a pair of leather boots that weren't worn in. They were wonderfully crafted, and I finished by slipping the overcoat she had left for me on over top. I was warm, clean, and considerably less sore than I had been for a long time. I left the bedroom through a set of double doors to the plucking of a loot and gentle conversation. I hadn't seen anyone here when I came in, but I was in a bad way. I followed the sound to a small sitting room near a fireplace towards the back of the house. Nothing on this plane of existence could have prepared me for what I saw.

A Khajiit, with the most brilliant coat of rich, dark purple fur I had ever seen, with a face gnarled with scars and pointed ears pierced with various-sized rings and studs stood in front of the hearth, and Morwen sat smiling and plucking at a small lute as the Khajiit danced and hummed like a circus performer for my strange host.

"Oh, oh!" she gasped for breath as the man did a twirl on the final note of a song, her face emblazoned with a smile and her laughter as sweet as a bird's song.

"You like this, eh? Who knew I could best the hero of Whiterun in a battle of dance!" he boasted as she took a sip from a goblet that had been sitting next to her on the side table, nearly blowing it out her nose as she let out a laugh again. She put her finger to her lips to shush her companion as the noise from their jests began to mount. She looked over and almost instinctively locked eyes with mine, and her smile sobered a bit.

"Kaidan! Apologies, if we disturbed you...um, this-" she hiccuped, swallowing her last swig of wine before continuing. "This is Inigo, he's a very good friend of mine, he stays here when we're not - hic - traveling together." Inigo gave a deep bow, and his ears pricked forward politely as he offered his hand. I approached as he grasped my forearm, a gesture foreign to Skyrim which I returned enthusiastically. It had been a long time since I met someone as traveled as myself, and the greeting was common among wanderers of Tamriel.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, I am glad you are no longer in a wet prison, as our mutual friend has explained to me. I hope you will stay and fight alongside us." I accepted politely as he shoved a cup of wine in my hands, and sank deep into the cushioned chair when Morwen drunkenly summoned me to sit with her.

"How are you feeling?" she asked rather clearly as she peered over her glass of wine, cool-toned eyes piercing the warm air like the edge of a blade. Her cheeks were flushed but she seemed almost composed, and I relaxed a bit when she gave me a renewed, slashing smile.

"Better, you're a lifesaver," I stated, taking a large gulp from my cup to a surprisingly strong wine. It was spiced, and I kept her eyes as fire slid down my throat and settled in my gut, warming me further. Her long eyelashes batted as she blinked slowly, before placing the cup to the side and replacing it with the small lute she was playing earlier. Inigo put his own goblet down and stood to dance a jig again as her dainty fingers plucked freely on the instrument's delicate strings, and soon my cup was empty and I bathed in the sweetness of her voice as she accompanied it.

"A sweet scented courtier did give me a kiss  
And promised me mountains if I would be his  
But I'll not believe him, for it is too true  
Courtiers promise much more than they do..."

The night was thick through all of the wine as she brought me to a spare bedroom some few hours later. She seemed much more sober now than I did, and I barely closed my eyes once I hit the plush pillow before I was fast asleep. My slumber was dreamless, and I was grateful. Too many demons followed me in my waking hours, and I'd rather not bring them with me now. In the early hours of the morning, I woke and couldn't find it in me to fall asleep again. I had come to Skyrim seeking a glimpse of my past. Bounty hunting filled my pockets, and tavern girls filled my bed, but I was approaching my twenty-fifth winter, and I yearned for something more than whores and gold to spend on them. My sword and bow had been set out on the dresser in the corner while I had slept, no doubt by my fascinating host.

Morwen Nox, enemy of the Thalmor, thief, politician, and perhaps something else, a sword for hire? She was cloaked in mystery, and I admitted to myself that I was drawn to her like the sea to the shore. Her earthy scent and intoxicating blue eyes were there even when I closed my own, and an impatient beast made my breeches tight. It's the bloody wine. I made excuses for myself as I undid my trousers and quietly as I could, brought pleasure to myself, finding release quicker than a green stable boy. Damn the wine. In the morning, rain pattered gently on the roof and I allowed myself to relax for the first time in ages, trying to steer my thoughts away from the raven-haired woman that saved me from certain death. Just barely over the growing sounds of a rainstorm through the farmhouse's thick timber walls, her sweet voice quietly drifted to my ears, singing the bawdy tune to the still air of her home.

"A master of music came with intent  
To give me a lesson on my instrument  
I thanked him for nothing, and bid him be gone  
For my little fiddle must not be played on..."


	5. Dragon Killer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio is called into battle as a dragon swoops down on Rorikstead. Kaidan saves Morwen's life once again. Morwen once again has no idea how to thank him. The Dragonborn's destiny cannot be ignored indefinitely, but the gods didn't expect her to be so stubborn.

The heavens opened upon the plains of Whiterun. By mid-morning, the farmhouse’s tile roof resisted the sheets of rain that fell from the sky by magic alone, I surmised. Inigo and Morwen were awake and deep in conversation when I emerged from the spare bedroom, fully awake by then but politely keeping away as not to overstay my welcome. There was a woman in Dawnstar that took me in when I had fallen asleep half-drunk on her porch. I had no coin to offer the Redguard, or her Nord husband, but she fed me all the same. Even heavy with child and with no two septims to rub together, Mara showed me her love through someone who didn’t know me. A heavenly smell of berries and butter floated from the stone oven in the kitchen, and as I approached the heavy dining table, Morwen gestured to the spread of cheese and bread and fruit in front of her.

“Did you rest well, my friend?” Inigo patted the sturdy chair beside him, beckoning me to sit.

“Aye, I’ve not slept this well since I was a babe, nor have I been so clean,” I rubbed sleep from my eyes as I spoke, the feeling from my wounds dulling enough to make my waking hours at least bearable. Morwen offered a small smile. I sat at the table and helped myself to a wedge of soft cheese and a handful of crisp grapes.

“I’ve no plans to leave this house until that rain buggers off, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with us until Kyne blesses us with a little sunshine, Inigo,” Morwen sighed as she popped a berry in her mouth, full lips parting like rising dough. On the table next to her was a leatherbound journal, open to a half-full page, and a curious feather pen. It was black as night, matching her halo of loose locks, and gilt at the handle like a decorative sword. A single, near flawless garnet was set into the finely-wrought detailing, and I asked about it as politely as I could through a mouthful of fresh bread.

“It was a gift,” Morwen said simply, but Inigo wanted to elaborate more than she.

“From the future High Queen Elisif, no less! My friend, you are one shiny penny!” he exclaimed, gesturing to the mantle of the fireplace at the other end of the room. It was cluttered with valuables, mostly weapons on display racks.

“Let us see, an axe from that terrible Jarl in Dawnstar, and a fancy book from the freaky lady in the swampy place, and a very nice helmet from that brat from Falkreath. People here seem to clamor quite vigorously to give you titles that you do not like-” Morwen interrupted his recounting with a soft clearing of her throat, and the start of a witty retort. Which was then interrupted by an impossibly timed banging on the front door. We all looked at the entrance, and Morwen rolled her eyes when the visitor banged once again on the heavy doors, more frantic the second time.

In her housecoat, a heavy thing of a soft, richly-dyed brocade and trimmed with a fluffy black fur, she drifted gracefully to the front door, and Inigo stood up as she pulled it open to reveal a sopping wet young man in plain farmer’s clothes. He wore the red scarf and brass pin of a courier, and he wheezed and gasped like he had the very wind stolen from his body. He had clearly sprinted to get here, and managed to speak when Morwen demanded he do so quickly.

“I was sent… by the Guard… a Dragon has been sighted nearby… they plead for your aid… near Rorikstead.” More than a sellsword then, I concluded. Perhaps Thane means more than suitors lined up around the corner and a pretty allowance from the Jarl. Though I saw no Housecarl in sight. She handed the boy a small sack of gold from her coat pocket and tells him to rest in the barn if it pleases him. The boy nods and scampers off, braving the rain again. With a surprising amount of power, she shut the door and turned on a heel towards her bedroom. A bloody dragon, what’s next?

“Aha, yes! We will fight together again!” Inigo was even quicker than Morwen to dart into his quarters and produce a bundle of his own weapons. A black composite bow, a jet black sword, and twin daggers all find their place on his various belts and frogs as he scrambled to outfit himself. I sat, dumbstruck, as the pair of them suit up faster than I had ever seen. They were a team of frightening coordination. In a handful of minutes, Morwen appeared from her room in a terrifying array. Her armor, maille and all, was forged out of dark grey steel. She wore a quilted gambeson, and layered her limbs and chest with chain, leather and then hammered plate. Across her back sat the midnight-forged bow I saw on her saddle, and twisted arrows to match. Twin axes on her hips and a dagger strapped to her shoulder completed the ensemble, and I forgot to speak for a moment when she addressed me.

“You should stay here,” she said bluntly, making for the door.

“And miss a fucking dragon? Not a chance!” I was up and dressed in almost as little time as her and her companion; she didn’t complain. I strapped my bow to my back and my sword into its leather sheath. She handed me a quiver of arrows as she made for the door with Inigo in tow. I counted twenty shots in all.

“You should be careful,” Morwen instructed, a matronly brow raised at my eagerness.

“I swore to follow you, didn’t I?” my voice was more sure than I felt, and as she burst through the front doors of the estate house, the rain continued to fall like the gods were dumping buckets on our heads. A moment later we were all mounted on our steeds; Weir snorting and huffing under Morwen’s slender frame like a true beast of war, a stouter, dark grey creature named Artax with Inigo at his reins, and the strong filly under me, restless in the saddle as thunder ripped through the sky above.

“You lead, I follow,” Inigo nodded as Morwen set off at a trot towards the main road, and with a kick, we all picked up her gallop towards Rorikstead. I like Whiterun, but its plains are too open and its grass too thick to see through. It’s almost as bad as the city’s aging walls and toothless position in Skyrim’s civil war. We rode hard for a half an hour, slowing only when a white foam slicked the horses’ rumps and they tossed their heads in protest. I called up ahead to Morwen.

“How much further, your grace?” I half-teased. I feared her a little, but felt drawn to her even as she wheeled her horse around to face me, sopping wet and face contorted into a sort of thoughtful frown.

“If the horses can take it, another short gallop away,” she craned her neck, squinting through the torrential downpour, using a gloved hand to shield her eyes from the rain as she looked up the road. Sure as Shor, the sound of a dragon’s called lurked in the distance, just beyond the hillard.

“Perhaps one of us should draw it away from the village?” Inigo offered, also wheeling his steed as it tossed its grey face to shake the rain away. The moaning of the great beast drew slightly nearer, and lightning split the sky in two just as its terrible wings came into view ahead, blocking out all light behind it.

“I don’t think we’ll have to, she’s on us sure enough!” Morwen called, and she was right. I’ve only seen one dragon before, and somehow this time was even more frightening. Its body was sharp and angled like bone, and its wings were like something from a nightmare, grey and clawed like a bear. As it swooped in from overhead, it seemed to spot us sitting like ducks on the cobbled road - it began its descent with a shower of flames from its maw, and Morwen was the first to kick their horse into motion. She dropped the reins as she and Weir moved as one. Inigo followed, both pulling out their fearsome bows and loosing arrows at the great beast. Inigo dismounted quickly, but Morwen stayed on horseback, closing the gap between her and the dragon with impressive speed. The filly I had been gifted only yesterday stayed as sound as she could, but out of kindness I slid out of her saddle and joined Inigo, barely dodging another bout of flame as the dragon swooped down again.

“Here we go,” I reassured myself mostly, nesting an arrow between two fingers and letting it fly as the beast beat its wings down to land on the grassy hill. Between bursts of light from the near-black clouds, I heard a sound almost like metal on metal, and as I fired another arrow, I glanced over to see her now dismounted; Morwen’s raven hair flew wildly among a whirlwind of magic, almost like a deep blue wind surrounding her body, taking its shape. I had seen that very magic before, many people of Tamriel are granted abilities like this at birth. The Breton cloaked herself in a sort of magic armor, and I watch in utter horror as she took a face full of dragonfire without flinching, instead continuing to load the beast’s iron scales full of arrows, hoping to hit a weak spot. Among the rippling grass and dark grey sky, I lowered my weapon as the very veil might very well open at her command - she opened her mouth with teeth barred, and sound like rolling thunder emerged. A Thu’um knocked the dragon back, stunning it just long enough for Inigo’s arrow to find the crook of its cheek. It bellowed as beasts do, writhing and falling to the ground in preparation for defeat.

I come to my senses just as the dragon lands with a force to shatter stone upon the hill, scorched only slightly were it not for the downpour that still raged from above. I returned my bow to its place on my back and traded it for my longsword. I was trained from a very young age for war, and as Morwen stumbled back, bleeding and dizzy from an unarmored spot on her shoulder as the dragon nearly bites her head off, it’s war this beast has asked for. With a guttural yell, I sprinted between her and the creature, bellowing at her to get back. Inigo fired another handful of arrows at its tough scales, but nothing would pierce its iron hide. With a practiced swing at an angle from its natural armor, I managed to make contact with the skin underneath. The beast howled. I swing again, this time into its gaping mouth filled with teeth the size of my head. My shoulder was agony. Morwen stumbled behind me and scrambled back on all fours when a new, futile shower of flames came toward us. I masterfully slid my blade between my fingers, gripping the hilt skyward with strong hands as the dragon lowered its mighty head, bleeding from its mouth and onto the soft, muddy ground. I plunged the blade through its muzzle and with that one movement, pinned it to the hill. I watch the beast twitch as all beasts do, as their lives leave their bodies.

A thunderous, godlike sound begins to ripple through the air, and a thread of light like an aurora shot from the dragon’s corpse, its life force smouldering and revealing the treacherous bones underneath. The light connected Morwen and the dragon corpse together like a flowing fabric between them. Soon, as her chest rose and fell to regain her breath, the sound around us stops, and the flow of magic disappears. The Dragonborn sat in the mud below me, her purple-blue eyes met mine with a blend of gratefulness and guilt. For a moment, I saw a monster lying bloody beneath me. A dragon killer, a soul eater. The girl was bleeding from a wound that found her just between her neck and where her maille began on her shoulder. Inigo clapped me on the back with strong, limber paws, before passing me to help Morwen up.

“Perhaps we should ride you into the village to see if their healer did not get eaten, my friend,” his tone suggested he was joking, but his fuzzy brow furrowed in concern for her. She rose to her feet, not flinching as mud slicked off of her body as the rain let up a touch. She thanked me with her eyes, blinking slowly and deeply. I regretted the distance between our heaving lungs, my heart wrestled against my ribs as I looked at her, and I felt the urge to hear hers, too. Dragonborn. She whistled for Weir, who came loping obediently towards her. Artax followed Inigo’s whistle, and my green filly followed though I did not whistle for her. I’m not sure I know how to whistle. I retrieved my blade from the dragon’s skull with a sharp pull, the steel had effortlessly sliced through the bone.

With help, Morwen mounted her steed, and Inigo lead the way up the road to Rorikstead. The village’s meager garrison met us at the gates, with whoops and cheers for the mighty Dragonborn. They wear Whiterun’s standard yellows, and in their thanks, they saluted me as well.

“Whatever you need, Dragonborn, just say the word,” one man with an ugly moustache said, tears in his eyes as he holds Weir’s reins for the Thane to dismount.

“Your healer would be nice, goodman,” she patted the guard’s shoulder, and asked where the dragon had come from. Another, stockier guardsman answered.

“To the Northeast, there was a burial mound there on the hill that it burst through. Like some kind of undead, it seems,” his thick Nord accent was barely audible over the weather and the chatter of citizens emerging from their cellars and stone cottages. They cheer for the Dragonborn as Morwen lead the way to the healer’s hut, just up the hill through the gates. The village is mostly farms, though there is a small trader’s shop as well as an inn. We were soaked through to the bone, and a drink couldn’t hurt. I stepped forward and took Morwen’s weight upon my shoulder, aching as it may be, as her steps faltered for a moment. Her sweat smelled sweeter than I would have ever thought, and her dragon’s blood tinted the air with a metallic taste. Her armor clinked as she leaned into me, and Inigo opened the healer’s door to make it easier for me to duck under the door frame. We stood at the entrance to the cottage, sopping wet and bleeding, and as I looked up, and noticed the ancient woman behind the counter was blind as a bat.

“Sissel, is that you dear? Have you been poking around the butcher’s shop again?” the old woman crowed, before sniffing the air and frowning for a moment.

“Another bloody dragon, hmm? Very well, bring her to the table, I’ll see what I can do about that scratch.” A few moments passed, and Morwen reluctantly sat up on the woman’s healing table, armor tossed aside and tunic saturated with blood. The dragon had nicked her just across the collar bone with a smaller claw, luckily it was minor. With her tunic cut aside, I tried to look away, but something more primal got the better of me as the sight of her skin was intoxicating. Her body was perfectly sculpted, from what I managed to steal glances of. Her chest, though mostly still covered, looked so soft, yet firm as the blood was cleared away by busy hands. My heart sank though, at the sight of her left arm. The unmistakable pattern of flagellation crisscrossed her bicep, and continued past her elbow - all old, bright white scars. The healer bustled around mixing salves and poultices just as Morwen did when she brought me into her home, with surprising grace except for accidentally stepping on Inigo’s tail. He tried not to yelp, but he kept it curled near his body from then on.

“After that tonic I really do feel fine,” Morwen insisted, rather quietly compared to her usual drawl. The old woman was having none of it.

“Miss Nox, if I had pricked myself on a needle, you and Rorik and the bloody Jarl himself would tell me to bandage it up with the finest cottons.” As I saw the spark return to Morwen’s sharp face, I relaxed and even chuckled slightly at their bickering, like mother and daughter.

“Olava, if you had anything to do with a prick in the last fifty years, I’d cook up my own leg and feed it to the great Jarl in his big castle myself,” Morwen snapped playfully.

“It’s not your leg I’m worried about you losing, you silly tramp. I’ll have you know that I’ve had more children than you have fingers.”

“That’s lady tramp, if you please,” Morwen hissed through a particularly tight tug of her bandages as the healer finished her work. My face went as hot as a forge. The thought of the Dragonborn sharing some other man’s bed sent a pang of jealousy and some distant arousal through my gut. Did I really want her to share mine? To have her company didn’t seem to be such a small thing, as it was with tavern girls. She was something strange, but something new all the same. I had seen enough of ordinary, plain-faced girls with angry fathers or idiot husbands. Morwen Nox was a different caliber. Her chest barely avoided spilling from her ripped tunic as she leaned down to pick up her armor, and I jumped up from the rickety wooden chair I had sunk into and lunged over to help.

“You’re not my squire,” she scolded, but didn’t object when I snatched her lombard from reach.

“You’re to rest, I’ll pack up the horses,” I offered, and I genuinely wanted to help. I hoped the rain was still coming down in sheets so that I might melt into the gutter instead of having to ache for a woman I had just met. The weather had cleared, and unfortunately my mind did not follow. I could never tell her. I’ll pay my debt to her and if she’ll bid me to leave, I will. I packed her armor into Weir’s saddlebags and what didn’t fit, I threw over his massive rear and strapped it to the saddle. Among her things was an extra set of clothes, and I was greeted with a skeptical look when I presented the neatly folded linens to her.

“What else did you go digging through of mine, hunter?” she winked and left to dress behind a divider in between two healer’s beds, and I bloody near lost my mind.


	6. The World and its Horrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morwen Nox is Dragonborn, and reluctant to share more than she must with her new companion. Kaidan makes an attempt to bridge the gap, though he didn't expect his fascinating charge to demand his honesty. With promise he's bound to break, and a destiny she's bound to fulfill, the two ease into each other as the world becomes heavy on the outside of Elysium's walls.

We rode back to the estate in silence. The afternoon had arrived with an angry wind that had no doubt carried the rain away, and the grey clouds hadn’t yet parted overhead. Spring in Skyrim was nearly as harsh as her winters, and I felt almost as tumultuous as her changing weathers as I stared at Morwen from a horse’s length away. I was unable to peel my eyes away from her; she hadn’t put her armor back on, and instead wore a plain tunic and trousers that skillfully hid her powerful body. I was curious what lay underneath, what her skin would feel like under my hands. Would I hurt her, as I had done to others? Would I have her for a night and be done with it? Could I love a killer like her?

“Inigo,” Morwen called back to her companion, who had been riding alongside me on the wide cobbled road. “Would you head to Riften for me? I need an answer from Maven, about what we discussed…” she trailed off, and without further elaboration.

“It would be my pleasure, my friend,” Inigo said cheerfully over a renewed gust of wind. “Where should I meet you when I am done?” We had come up to the estate’s gate by now, and Morwen wheeled Weir around slowly to face her friend. She didn’t meet my eyes when I studied her face.

“I’ll fetch you, feel free to stay at the Flagon under my charge if it pleases you,” Inigo nodded, and turned in his saddle with a creak to bid me farewell.

“I hope to see you soon, new friend, I think you are a very skilled fighter and a very bad drinker,” the cat just grinned at me, before starting a trot towards the East road, revealing pearly white fangs like two sharp daggers. I followed Morwen back into the barn, and only spoke after the horses had been untacked.

“You’ve a lot more surprises than you let on, your grace,” I attempted a bit of humor, to see if she’d even look at me, but an expression of anger and impatience was cemented on her face as she silentedly gathered her things. Frustrated, I followed her through the wooden double doors. Breakfast was still sprawled out on the dining table, but she ignored it as she passed and instead tossed her armor aside, as well as a saddle bag that clinked when it hit the ground.

“You’re free to roam the grounds, just don’t break anything,” she said rather dejectedly as she snatched a bottle of wine off of the oaken bar that occupied a corner of the living space.

“Listen, uh, Morwen-” the pop of the bottle’s cork interrupted me. I continued. She didn’t look back as I followed her down the hallway.

“You’ve clearly got a lot on your mind,” I dodged around her boots as she kicked them off, “would you like to talk about it?” My voice echoed through the space. She turned into her bedroom with a generous swig from the burgandy-colored bottle, but I persisted. My gambeson was still damp from the rain, and my boots were tracking mud along the timber floor. I noticed her footsteps had become silent.

Morwen’s room was divided by a wall in the centre in an L shape; on the far side was her bed, and on the side closest to the door was a large, heavy-looking desk. A fire crackled pleasantly in a hearth along the wall to my right, and bookshelves lined the remaining wall space nearly packed with tomes and various volumes of all shapes and sizes. Two lecturns mirrored each other on either end of the office, both open to pages with enchanted, moving drawings emblazeoned on the parchment. She sunk into a chair that sat near the hearth, but not before slipping her trousers out from underneath her tunic, which just barely covering her upper thighs. Her legs were tantalizing, long for a Breton, and powerful, apparent as she stretched out in front of the fire for a good long minute before looking up at me through her heavy eyelashes. They were webbed with tears, which surprised me.

“You must thing I’m some sort of monster,” she huffed, taking a third hearty sip of wine and wiping her lips on her sleeves. Morwen’s youth was apparent now more than before, as she pouted with thick lips. Her stark-blue eyes puffed slightly as she locked them deep into the flames.

“No, no-” I started, clearing my throat a touch. “I’m only wondering what’s goin’ on in that head of yours,” I spoke as gently as I could, quietly ducking out of the scabbard across my back, placing my weapons aside as I waited for her response.

“You’ve saved my life twice now, Kaidan, I won’t keep you for any longer than you wish to stay,” she said solemnly, glancing up for a moment before returning her gaze to the hearth.

“You could have told me.” I knew it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Perhaps our lives were meant to intertwine; she held a fear not unlike mine for her own nature. The Dragonborn gave a twisted laugh and paired it with a grimace, before tossing a slender hand to the door.

“You wouldn’t have believed me,” she sat up slightly in her seat, slicking a tear off of her supple cheek. She regained composure just as I wanted her to stay where she was, with her voice so quiet and her tone free of haughtiness or contempt. Nevertheless, a mask returned.

“You’re a frustrating creature, Dragonborn,” I snapped, only half joking, before plucking the bottle of wine out of Morwen’s unsuspecting hand. She made a grab for it, rising to her feet and leaning up towards where I stood, just barely grazing my chest with her chin as she reached up. I looked sternly down at her, and she looked up at me like a cornered animal, though not unlike a fox enjoying her chase. Her lips parted gently, and I mused at how she fancied herself the predator.

“You will give me back my wine,” she commanded, and I could have obeyed, were it not for an extraordinary spark I felt as her sharp gaze locked with mine. The Dragonborn lunged again for the bottle I held aloft, only far enough that she felt she could reach. I pulled the bottle back, and she collided with my chest playfully as I teased her without mercy. Morwen’s rare tears were forgotten quickly as she laughed, and I conceded as she poked my muscled chest with a sharp finger. I mocked an injury and she prodded me again, sniffling slightly as she held the bottle in her hand. She didn’t drink from it, only stood close to me, chest rising and falling as she bit back a giggle. I didn’t tear my eyes away, and instead let the smirk fall from my face.

“I will go, if you want me to, Dragonborn,” I breathed, feeling the heat from her body radiate outwards, inhaling the smell of the sweat in her hair and the blood under her tunic. She only shook her head, placing the bottle down on the heavy desk. Her fingers lingered for a moment, wrapped around the neck of the bottle gently.

“What if I want you to stay?” she asked, shy under a hard mask of a young woman who defends the soft parts of herself with tooth and claw. I’d gladly bleed and bruise to feel the delicate parts of her, body yes, perhaps soul as well.

“I’ll stay, then,” I nodded down to her, but she surprised me again with a strong fist full of my tunic and a hard shove. Perhaps I was the prey afterall, as the little Breton slammed me against the wall even though she could barely reach my neck with her eyes. She kept me pinned to the plaster behind me with a hand flat on my chest. I wondered if she could feel my blood rip through my body. My manhood stirred in my breaches, and I prayed to every god I could think of to will the bastard down.

“Very well,” she mused, a smug look on her pretty face. Her eyes drifted downwards for just a moment. Gods, what if she saw?

“I’ll be honest with you, if you’re honest with me, hunter,” her razor-sharp smile had returned, pearly white and vicious. I broke the promise as I made it, careful not to look away.

“Fair enough,” I agreed, lying through my teeth. I had many demons, I carried them with me from Skingrad to Blacklight. Even then, as I had returned to the land that raised me, I taunted my past to come and find me. If I were a better man, I would have left her there to be alone in her grand estate, far too big for a girl so quick to cry and tease and chide. I wanted to pull this creature in close, to feel her breasts press against my stomach and cup her arse in my palms. I wondered now as she let off her hand from my chest and giggled sweetly, how sweet her song would be as I had her deeply, burying my face into her neck and dragging my teeth across her skin. Instead, I exhaled heavily and watched as she rounded the corner out of sight, instructing me to leave her to bathe and dress alone.

“There’s a bath out back, and extra clothes in your room, I’ll have to do something about that armor though…” she called from behind the thin wall separating my view of her as I heard the soft thunk of her tunic being tossed to the floor. I bit my tongue and left her to it, exiting the room out of the double doors and returning my weapons to their spot on the dresser. I stripped off my gambeson, and my damp tunic, then my boots and breaches as well. A silver mirror, framed beautifully in a carved standing frame, was tucked into the corner of the guest room. I took in my reflection for the first time since arriving, and a stranger seemed to be wearing my skin. Scars across my body, both new and old, glistened in the lamplight of the room. My dark hair and beard were long and barely kempt, and my blood red marking across my cheek was as dull as my skin was pale. I was captured by the Thalmor in the second week of the Last Seed, nearly half a year spent wasting away from the sun’s kiss. Morwen’s handiwork on my newest wounds was good enough, I had removed the bandage in the morning and the deep gashes and other marks were now just pink and shining, fresh but healthy scars. A more experienced healer would leave no marks at all, but I felt Kyne’s blessing in every crevice.

Once broad and stalwart, my muscles had weaned and I looked a small thing compared to my younger self. A proud, angry man of seventeen, I once believed in the wrong things and loved the wrong people. I fucked the wrong women, drank the wrong ale, spent days hazy on the wrong drug. I was a stallion, and now I feel my pride atrophied and bridled like a common nag. I briefly heard Morwen humming through the thick walls of the house, before she’s quiet once more. I’ve seen the world and its horrors, and if it’s the only good and pure thing I do, I will protect the Dragonborn with my life.


	7. All Of This Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few days of adventuring has passed. Morwen and Kaidan start opening up about their families, with the help of some wine.

“Your turn,” I bubbled, taking a sip from my goblet and peering at Kaidan’s furrowed brows. He was handsome, I’ll give him that. Polite, to boot. He could have swept me up and taken me under his body like any common brute would have after I spotted his cock making a guest appearance a week prior. He had only met my eyes and agreed to honesty. If he had asked nicely, I might have even beckoned him between my legs and let him bury himself there. I had never had any man in my bed, I blushed unknowingly as Kaidan wrinkled his nose, thinking of his next question. Especially not a man like him. In Elysium’s basement was a sort of lounge that was padded with furs and expensive pillows, well stocked with wine and other fare. After a windy few days of roaming Whiterun’s plains and exploring her cairns and caves, Kaidan and I had returned to the house to rest before the climb ahead.

Inigo had sent a letter ahead with Maven Black-Briar’s request, the shrewd bitch. I received the courier when I was brushing Weir’s thick coat free of its winter dander on a rather warm evening just days after he had departed. A pretty, mousy Bosmer with wispy pink lips and freckled cheeks stuttered in thanks as I pressed a few septims into her hands. Her hair was reddish and fine, and I found myself missing the miller’s daughters and miner’s wives I often invited into my bed. Or theirs, or any lonely alleyway where I could lift their skirts and enjoy the warmth of their sin. My mind had been racing all week, and my body followed suite, aching and wanton in the company of this brooding hunter. It felt so strange, and yet so new.

When I was a child, I fell in love with a girl from a neighboring clan during a summit of all our houses. I was raised in the wild Reach of Skyrim, daughter of Hircine by right of kin and savage in the eyes of the Nords. My clan worshiped Dibella, the goddess of beauty and the arts, and my father and mother were fond of other Daedric gods, Mephala and Sanguine respectively. We had kept our love a secret for so long, and she died at my father’s hand when I asked to marry her. Perhaps that is why my feelings were so foreign, and there was no father to steal my love away this time. When I opened his throat in his sleep, I made sure of that. Kaidan roused me from my thoughts as he finally thought of a question.

“Where are you from? Were you born in Highrock?” he asked, tilting his head and blinking slowly. We were both on the way to getting very, very drunk. The evening had settled long before now, and we sat sprawled out in the den below the house enjoying being clean of Draugr stench and cobwebs. I hiccuped.

“Not all Bretons are from Highrock,” I dodged the question, and he scolded me with a look.

“Oi, you’re supposed to answer honestly!” he accused playfully. I conceded after taking another sip of my drink.

“I’m from Skyrim,” I said cautiously, gauging his reaction. Many Nords hate wild Reachmen as much as those same wild Reachmen hate being called “Forsworn.” Some of my people consult with wicked Hagravens and witches and perform atrocities in the name of some false understanding of the gods we worship. My family were once kind, good people.

“The Reach is my homeland,” I stated finally, and understanding washed over Kaidan’s face. He nodded but did not seem to flinch. Comforted, I continued.

“My mother was a priestess of Dibella, and my father was a fine hunter. We lived along the Karth, though we moved deeper into the Druadach mountains as my siblings and I got older.”

“You were Forsworn,” he stated, nodding again as he plucked a berry from the nearby platter. “You’ve got its look about you,” He was calm, mostly, though I could see something drifting solemnly just behind his eyes. I prayed that no one he loved died at the hands of my people.

“Y’know, I spent a year of my childhood in the Reach,” Kaidan began, speaking proudly through the haziness of a good wine, “killed my first sabre cat not far from Dragon Bridge with nothing but a homemade bow and a flint knife.”

“You were a stone’s throw away from my clan,” I sat up straight for the first time in quite a few minutes. “I used to roam the hills near there with my sisters, we’d pick grapes off of the rocks and bring them home in the folds of our skirts,” I remembered fondly, excited now and nearly jittering as Kaidan listened patiently. “My mother would make a sweet ale with the ones we’d bring home, but sometimes we’d forget and eat all of them before we even made it back to the camp,” I giggled and wistfully idled with a lock of my hair. Kaidan reminded me it was my turn to ask him something.

“Very well, hunter, since we’re asking such dreadful questions,” I jested, sitting up on my shins and placing my goblet aside. “Why are you really in Skyrim?” He paused at this, also sitting up straight now. His thick lips pursed slightly as he formulated his answer, and I couldn’t decide whether he was spinning a lie or if he didn’t know the truth in the first place.

“I’m trying to find out more about, well, me. My past. The man who raised me left me with nothing but questions, and my sword. I was raised in Skyrim mostly, so I’m here to put some pieces together,” he looked less relieved and more like he had been run over by a horse. His face contorted and I decided to press him for more.

“What was his name?” I moved forward just an inch, close enough to graze his strong hands with mine.

“Brynjar,” he answered, finally. “Bloody drunk. I spent most of my childhood on the run from that man’s mistakes,” he laughed, despite such strong words about the man who raised him. “For my thirteenth birthday, I woke up in the middle of nowhere with nothing but an empty waterskin and a hunting knife. Took me three whole days to make it back to civilization, and I found Brynjar waiting for me at a local inn, drunk as a fruit bat and as naked as the day he was born,” Kaidan didn’t look at me, instead he looked past my shoulder at some distance memory. He chuckled to himself softly.

“That’s so strange,” I didn’t want to criticize, seeing as I was raised by killers and witches, as it were. “Why would he do that?”

Kaidan tossed a hand like he was brushing something away.  
“Bah, old man was running from something, and I imagine it was his way of preparing me for the day I’d be without him,” I saw the logic in it, perhaps wishing for the same kindness from those who had raised me.  
“Didn’t do him any favors, he died before he could tell me what all of this meant,” he gestured to his tattoo, and to an imaginary sword that he didn’t have on his person, he had left it upstairs in his room. That fearsome longsword. He had saved my life with it twice now, and its steel was sharper than anything I had ever seen. He killed without question, delivering on his promise to repay a debt I didn’t see. I took a chance, my heart leaping as I placed my small hands over his strong fingers. The air was full of his melancholy, and I squeezed only a touch to let him know I was listening.

“Exposure, is what the priests called it,” Kaidan continued, his skin was hot to the touch and I was close enough now to smell the wine on his lips. I nodded, before hiccuping and causing a small smile to dawn on his face, just for a moment. “He couldn’t resist the drink, and when he went out one night looking for something stronger, he froze to death on the temple stairs. Whether he meant to kill himself or not, I dunno, bloody coward…” He needn’t continue. I’d seen men drink themselves to death over debts and over women, even treasures they’ve not been able to find. Sometimes men drink because they don’t care if they live for the morrow.

“I’m sorry, Kai, that must have been horrible.” He nodded, though he didn’t want apologies. I cursed myself as soon as I said it. I lifted my nose to level with his, closer now to his face than I had been since I was mending his wounds.  
“Men get sick, I’m sure he loved you all the same,” to this, Kaidan only gave me a smirk.

“You’ve a bigger heart than you let on, Dragonborn, perhaps I could learn something from you.”

“You could learn a lot from me, sir. I could have you master the lute if I so choose,” my composure was slipping nearly as fast as my heart was racing. Perhaps I should have asked before I shoved a drink in this poor man’s hands, though his cheeks were just as flushed and his eyes just as curious as mine. The ale many folk in Skyrim is just as much a crutch as those foggy Moon Sugar dens or poppy flower pipes. The room fell silent, but his hands stayed under mine.

“I could help you solve this riddle, if you’d let me,” I offered finally. Kaidan’s reddish brown eyes lit up, a tension still taut between us but joined now by a fluttering feeling that I could only hope was mutual. A friendship, hard to find within Skyrim’s harsh and proud people. I felt the threads of fate weave themselves together like a tapestry to connect us. This hunter was no Nord, that I was certain of. And the warmth of his laugh as he nodded and accepted with grace. I was fascinated, enchanted even, and that alone was almost enough to forget about how cruel the world above us was. He asked his question next.

“What happened to your family?” It was a question that burned a hole in my chest every time I heard it. I told most people that I was orphaned during Ulfric Stormcloak’s occupation of Markarth. I told Kaidan the truth.

“My mother and father slowly began to heed the words of a madman, sent from behind the bars of Markarth’s prison. Madenach, they called him the King of Rags,” I chose my words carefully, because in many ways I agreed with that same madman. After all, I had set him free from prison not three months prior to meeting Kaidan. “He claimed that the Reach belonged to what you see as the Forsworn, but what many Reachmen see as traitors and threats to peace. They began to follow his insane doctrine, which involved such wicked and terrible magic,” Kaidan piped up, already having guessed the answer.

“Hagravens,” he said with finality. I nodded.

“They make monsters of men and called them Briarhearts, for the flower that they replace their own hearts with,” I explained further. I didn’t notice when I pulled my hands away from Kaidan’s, but he listened all the same. “I was to be married to one of those very monsters. They take as many wives as they please, and do with them what they like. I didn’t know what else I would do, but I refused to bear the children of some affront to man and god…”

“You don’t have to continue,” Kaidan’s eyes were kind, but his brows furrowed with anger. I don’t think it was an anger I caused, but more a concern for me. My face became hot.

“I killed them, all of them. While they slept.” I wanted him to understand, I wanted him to hear what I did. No one had ever loved me after I confessed. “I slit the throats of my kin and escaped the grasp of the witches that commanded them. I haven’t gone back to bury them. I imagine they still rot in the grove we camped in high in the mountains, where the Jarl’s men couldn’t find us.”

Kaidan was quiet for a long while, before he simply nodded, and snatched my goblet off of the low table behind me. When he leaned forward, I inhaled the scent of his hair, and felt the heat of his body. He filled the cup for me, and then his own, before thrusting it into my hands.  
“You were very brave,” he concluded, before taking a gulp of wine. “I think it’s best if we both become, very, very drunk.”


	8. Dead Oaths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morwen and Kaidan have been traveling together for weeks now. After a bout of dungeon diving and bandit hunting, a curious opportunity draws Morwen into its folds. Kaidan fears his past may be coming back to take his budding friendship with the Dragonborn away from him.

The girl of the Reach, Dragonborn and a proper lady, slept not an arm’s length away from me. I let her rest, both of us aching from reckless adventure. We were quite a pair with our weapons drawn; she an archer of deadly skill, and I followed as dutifully as I could, my blade an extension of my arm devoted to tearing through her enemies at the snap of her fingers. When she plucked me from certain death, perhaps I thought I would continue my life as an agent of the law in Skyrim, dragging bandits and necromancers back to the guard for measly pay. Pay my debt to her and leave as soon as I could. As we relaxed around a roaring fire somewhere deep within the Southern ridges of the Pale, I watched as Morwen drifted in and out of her dreams, brow furrowing as she tossed gently. I don't think I could ever bring myself to leave her side now. Silently, we warmed our bones just as we had for countless nights before, desperately bundled in furs and thick wool as Skyrim's winter threatened the months ahead. She was close enough for me to feel her stir as she woke.

"Are you not tired?" Morwen slid up in her fur bedroll, rubbing sleep from her eyes as her jet black hair fell tangled onto her chest.

"No, I've got too much on my mind," I said wistfully. I knew better than to poke at her curiosity, but she's gotten good at seeing through my fibs like a mother would a misbehaving child. I found her puzzling, and the more I got to know her, I found her charming.

"And what troubles the mighty hunter this evening, hmm? Too much gold and nothing to spend it on out here?" she teased as the wind roared in our eardrums.

"No, no..." I found this place all too familiar, and never in a comforting sense. Since we had spent a handful of days in Dawnstar, I felt old memories begin to wrap their fingers around my throat. A log popped loudly in the core of the campfire, and as I looked up at the rippling sky above us, she joined me, tilting her head to gaze at the stain of stars across the night.

"You're quite the complicated little prince, aren't you? So many thoughts going on in that big head of yours," she grinned at me as I shot her a look. "Do you know what a joke is? Or are you too full of things to brood about."

"I do know a joke or two, I'll have you know," I looked down at her as she scooted a hair closer to me, pulling her furs around her body to cut the wind. She blinked up at me, and I relented a smile. "What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?" She scrunched her nose.

"What, then?"

I said nothing, raising an eyebrow instead to see if she'd catch on. With a rather unladylike snort, she burst into a fit of giggles. I sighed. 

“A relief that didn't fall flat."

I successfully steered Morwen's stubborn questions away for the evening, and when we had packed up camp and started on the West road the next morning, I listened to her babble about politics and training and whatever else she felt like. She had a laundry list of tasks to accomplish, and over the next couple of days, she'd barely sleep for finishing them. A priest of Mara had asked her aid in cleansing a temple, a bounty had been put out on a few bandits to the Northeast, and finally, a task from her rather detached tutors in the monastery atop Kyne's peak. After a tantrum and an evening spent ignoring me from across our campfire, she had finally agreed to answer the call of the Greybeards. Bloody cowards, in my opinion. I didn't dare say a thing to her about it though. They'd have her peacefully meditate for the rest of her life as some monk, chained to peace by a vow. I had waited on the black stone steps of High Hrothgar during her long hours of training, more at my own insisting than her preference. Places of worship never sat right with me, and I wasn't about to tempt fate now. Throughout the couple months we had spent together, I had witnessed her perform nothing short of miracles, moving as fast as wind or ripping dragons out of the sky with her Voice. Power like that should never be put in a cage.

We rode for an old crypt named Ustengrav. The Greybeards sent us on our way to fetch some old relic of their leader. I thought the whole bloody thing ridiculous, but followed all the same as we approached its doors. The whole ruin had eroded from the wind off the coast just a few leagues North of it. Summer had settled in comfortably, but the air here was sharp and near freezing. The trip there had been miserable, and just like every other damn ruin in this country, the descent into the bowels of the tomb were miserable, and as we approached the heart of the crypt, the result was bloody miserable.

"What in the bloody hell is that?" I barked as we approached the old coffin at the head of the burial hall. We were both drenched in sweat, covered in cobwebs and bleeding from at least one good gash each. Morwen's harsh eyes scanned the note she had plucked from the relic's holding place at a lightning pace. I stood dumbly behind her, trying to free my bow of a layer of spider silk.

"Fuck," she only whispered, as she reread the piece of parchment. The stone above us howled and groaned, as all forgotten ruins do.  
"There's no horn here. Someone's taken it."

"Someone knew we were coming?" I sneered, my paranoia already reaching a peak even for the relatively early hour.

"Someone dangerous enough to slip past those Draugr," Morwen confirmed, tucking the letter into a pouch on her hip before wheeling around to face me. Her face was lit up like a torch, eyes ablaze and lips trying to hide a smirk. "Finally, someone that isn't a terrible bore."

We ducked through the treasury room, quickly splitting the gold piled on the tables and in the various urns between the two of us, before slipping through an auxiliary exit and back into Skyrim's harsh morning. She explained as we mounted the horses and headed back towards Dawnstar at a trot that the note stated to ask for the "attic room" at Riverwood's inn. I was more than familiar with the place, and we puzzled over the fact that there wasn't actually an attic room. I peeled my thoughts away from the thought of her flirting with some local farm girl the last time we had rested there. I drank until I couldn't keep my eyes open that night.

"So, maybe they're not from here?" I posited as we passed the last road marker before Dawnstar.

"You're not from here either, hunter, and you've the brain to see that most folks here don't bother with cloak and dagger nonsense."

She was right, of course, and I assured her that I'd have her back should this stranger try anything. We were to take a carriage from Dawnstar to give the horses a rest of our weight, and ride from Whiterun to Riverwood, and then around the base of the mountain to Ivarstead. That is, if Morwen's curiosity hadn't gotten the better of her. Just as we restocked our supplies at a local shop in Dawnstar, an argument broke out between a curt Breton court mage, and a man in all-too-familiar blood red robes.

"Your mother wouldn't want this for you, Silus!" the mage pleads as the man in the strange robes adjusts a tapestry hanging over the door to his home. My heart dropped into my boots. The Mythic Dawn.

"My mother is long gone now, Madena, and this is her history as much as mine." The man snapped, not yet realizing that he's gained an audience as Morwen inched towards the commotion.

"It should stay in the past, Silus. Dead oaths on dead lips. Nothing good will come of this!"

"So be it, Madena. I thought you of all people would understand, but the museum will open without your blessing." Silus realized that we had been listening, and beckoned us towards the door with gloved hands.

"Morwen, I don't like th-" I started. Silus' shilling interrupted me.

"And here come my first patrons! Come in, please, come in, I've collected many artifacts from all over Skyrim! Do you like ghost stories, my lady? Well, Dawnstar has its very own grim and grotesque history, I'd be honored to show you around." Silus roped Morwen in, holding the door open to the museum as he locked his beady eyes onto mine. I followed reluctantly, diving headfirst into a secret I would have rather kept buried. We stepped into the museum as Morwen handed the man a pair of septims. Each wall was cloaked in the colors of the Mythic Dawn. A Daedric cult, filled with madmen and twisted mages, Silus explained. Glass cases held ancient texts and bloodstained grimoires, ritual knives and garb. The museum owner babbled on as Morwen's icy eyes had already found the most intriguing thing in the room: a display case that held shards of the purest steel I had ever laid eyes upon. It looked to be a shattered blade, no longer than my forearm once but it now laid in pieces the size of river rocks. It still held a wicked edge, and I fought back a shiver that dripped down my back. Discussion of payment snapped be back into the current conversation.

"As you can see, the blade lies in pieces, but I'd be more than willing to pay - within reason - for the return of the other lost components. Let's see... a pommel, a hilt, and a piece of the blade are still missing. They're collectors items, really, but most valuable when together."

"I'm sure such a studious and...thorough man such as yourself would never want to resort to cheap labor," Morwen was charming her way to a larger bounty. I saw the way she fiddled with men's emotions. A subtle squeeze of her shoulders would bring her breasts closer together, a gentle parting of her lips made her tongue just barely visible through them. "I would be happy to bring you the pieces of your family's history. Let's say, a thousand septims a piece?" She batted her thick eyelashes, and the impetulent Imperial was as good as dead.

"It's a deal, my lady." Silus enthusiastically shook her outstretched hand, and I watched silently as he handed over a small leather journal with the Mythic's sun embossed sloppily on its cover. "I imagine this will give you some clues as to the whereabouts of the pieces I've asked for. The portfolio includes all of the research I've done so far. I'll deliver payment upon delivery of each piece. Pleasure doing business with you, Madam," he bowed almost too low, nearly tripping on his crimson robes as he fumbled to open the door for Morwen on her way out of the museum. I bit down on a snarl.

"Oh! Madam, you insult me, goodman," Morwen jested as was custom for more prominent members of Skyrim's social climate, such as herself, but definitely not Silus. It was like watching a cat play with its food. She gave a delicate wave goodbye and dropped her graceful smile as soon as Silus shut the door to his damned museum. I couldn't bring myself to say anything to her. It would be the same as admitting guilt. Admitting sin. The moon sugar, the drink, gambling, whores, murder. I practiced vices so expertly in my not-so-distant youth, that I could teach them like the Greybeards teach breathing. All in the name of Mehrunes Dagon, Lord of Razors, Prince of Destruction. I wasn't devout, I never prayed. I just used it as an excuse to hurt others. I looked at Morwen as she mounted Weir so gracefully, and remembered how she feared my opinion of her had changed as I watched her swallow a dragon's soul. She killed with such finality, and held such a heavy destiny. I briefly thought us so similar, but now as I lay so close to my dead oaths, she shines the hero, and I'm the monster she kills.


	9. The Bounty of Others

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The note left in Ustengrav was a Thalmor trap. Morwen and Kaidan made their escape, fleeing to the neutral grounds of High Hrothgar. The pair are sleepless, and with a quiet night in the monastery's library, some truth seeps out through Morwen's haughty and paranoid exterior. Kaidan finds himself enjoying the moment of peace between them.

Rage. It was hidden beneath the surface, blood under skin. It was like the cracking spine of an old book as I saw it, but Morwen Nox was silent. Anger flooded her face as we rode away from Riverwood. The Thalmor were waiting for us at the tavern as we arrived in Riverwood. After killing them all, and paying off the guards, we found out that it was the innkeeper of the Sleeping Giant Inn who had sold us both out. Morwen has a price on her head higher than a king’s ransom for clearing out another Thalmor prison to the Northwest. When Morwen’s arrow had found the innkeeper’s throat amidst the chaos, we agreed silently not to return to her estate that night.

“She threatened both of us,” she hissed over an untouched plate of food that night, drinking deeply from a bottle that I had no intention of separating from her. A white-knuckle grip brought the drink to her lips. “She would have turned you into the Thalmor just as quickly as she tried to get me out of the way.” 

I sighed. Inside High Hrothgar, atop Kyne’s sacred mountain, the air was still. She invited me inside for the first time since she had begun her training, and the interior felt as safe as anything could be. High stone walls met higher stone ceilings, all in a deep charcoal grey. Carvings adorned the columns that lined the main hall, as well as the archways leading to the east and west wings of the monastery. There were no decorations aside from a few tapestries, and when I first met one of her tutors, I understood why. He barely whispered when he greeted me, but the walls rumbled with the power of the Voice.

“I know,” I started, breathing deeply and making sure to choose my words carefully. She stared quietly past my shoulders, lost in thought as I continued. “You’re not the type to kill senselessly, this was deliberate on her part. Shame we’ve no more answers than when we started, though…” I paused for a moment. “We should be more careful when traveling from now on.”

“Perhaps, though I do have a better idea,” Morwen’s eyes took on a subtle smile, though her lips hung in a small frown. She schemed silently as we finished eating, and despite the late hour, wandered off into High Hrothgar’s modest library. I couldn’t bring sleep to find me. Restlessly, I tossed around in my bedroll that lay sprawled near a hearth, aching and filthy from weeks of adventuring. It was early in the morning when I decided to slip my tunic on and explore the monastery, and the light from the pale sun was only just coming through the iced windows when I spotted Morwen curled up with a book. My soles patted gentle and bare against the cold stone, and I almost thought I would be able to sneak up on her, when her vicious gaze snapped to me from over the old tome leaning against her thighs. 

“It’s not about how you move, it’s about where you move,” she stated simply, returning her bright blue eyes to the dusty page she had been studying. I stood dumbly for a moment, before she patted the old wooden armchair next to hers. I sat, and helped myself to the small platter of cheese that was set out on the end table between us. High Hrothgar’s library wasn’t full of shelves, but the handful of bookcases were packed with old books and journals, scrolls and boxes no doubt full of letters and other writings. The room was off the Eastern wing, and contained a hearth as well as a seating area, a scribe’s table, and two crackling braziers at opposing corners. The furniture was near ancient, warped and weathered wood making up various chairs and low tables. Books littered in piles were the only decor, and a breeze from some open window just barely managed to make a stack of parchment flutter gently.

“Very well then, show me how it’s done,” I gave her a grin, in return she rolled her eyes.

“And what do I get in return?” she raised an eyebrow, already slamming the book shut despite a false protest. She had leaned forward to place the book on the low conversation table in front of her, and when she sat back up, her body leaned over the arm of the chair, her face close to mine. She wore a housecoat wrapped close to her form, and under the graceful layers of brocade and wool, her collarbone was bare. I watched her breath rise and fall for just a moment, before returning to her sharp eyes.

“Name your price, Dragonborn,” I responded, keeping her gaze. Her cheekbones were sharp, but they softened in the light of the flickering fire. A log popped loudly, and I glanced at it for just a moment, before turning back to see that Morwen was no longer sitting in the oaken armchair. In fact, she had disappeared. Her scent evaporated from the air in between us, but her giggle was unmistakable as I whipped around to see where she had gone. I heard no footsteps, no swishing of fabric, only her laugh as it bubbled through the thin mountain air. I stood, glancing behind me, before whipping around again as a tome seemed to fling itself off of the bookshelf nearest me, thunking to the ground in a cloud of dust. I approached the bookcase, and caught another book as it launched off of the shelf. Peering around the other side, I nearly yelped as a tap on my shoulder came from directly behind me. I blew air fast out of my nose, trying not to give her the satisfaction of laughing at her pranks, before spinning around wildly to try and snatch her before she could skirt off again. My hands caught air, and she giggled again before I caught a glance of her leaning casually against the wall near the door. 

Morwen’s housecoat had slipped from her body a bit, revealing a bare chest and simple linen skirt underneath. Her breasts were just barely covered by the heavy fabric of her overcoat, and her underskirt had high slits cut into it to reveal a sliver of her powerful legs. She crossed her arms over her chest, and gave me a smirk from within the half-shadow cast by the hearth. I mimicked her, crossing my arms across my chest after returning the books to their empty plots on the shelf. 

“I’ve not learned anything yet, besides that you think you’re awfully funny,” I teased, and she slinked forward into the light of the fire, a hand now resting on the top of a squat armchair.

“You’ve not been paying attention, then,” With a wink, she vanished into thin air. Bloody magic. She was silence itself, but in the heat from the fire, a ripple of her form was just barely visible as she closed the gap between us. I quickly snapped my arms forward, blindly grabbing her out of the air. She gasped as I clamped my hands down on her shoulders, and she re-materialized just as I pulled her close out of instinct. Her form felt so tiny in my hands, and she breathed heavily as her wide eyes met mine. Pupils dilated slightly, and fear turned into amusement as we kept each others’ gaze. Her housecoat had slipped from her shoulders, and her breasts rose and fell with her breathing, now bare to the chilled air of the monastery. By the Nine, they were perfect. Soft and supple things with nipples that matched the gentle pinks of her lips, perky and facing slightly upwards in the cold. My manhood already stirred in my trousers, quickly straining at the laces as I lingered perhaps a moment too long on her freckled chest. I let her shoulders go gently, playfully chuckling to ease out of the silence, but not before I let my thumb graze her bare skin just under her collarbone. I feared I might spend myself at any moment if she so much as looked me deeply. My cock throbbed as she regained a bit of composure, slipping her coat over her chest again. There was barely a forearm’s length between us, but she didn’t step back.

“No one is pure talent, some of us are lucky enough to receive the bounty of others,” she mused, loose hair fluttering around her small face. Her cheeks were slightly pink, but she held no shame. It was me that looked away first; I could have brought her lips to mine and tasted her in the morning’s hazy light leaking in through the high windows. The thought of having her there and listening to her sweet cries echo through these ancient halls nearly consumed me, and I tightened my jaw as she reached up to pluck a piece of lint from my collar. Flicking her hair over her shoulder as she turned to sit by the hearth, she left an aroma of some earthy perfume in her wake. She glanced behind her shoulder to check that I had followed, and once I sank into the armchair beside her, she cast a look at my chest. The tunic I wore was open at the collarbone, and several scars were visible through the keyhole neckline.

“You’ve still not taught me anything, Dragonborn,” I prodded, and Morwen’s eyes flicked up to mine.

“I never offered to teach anything, only to show you,” once again there was only an end table in between us, and she leaned over it, a whisper’s distance between us. A wicked smile slashed at her face, and she took my hand I had resting on the arm of my seat. With delicate fingers, she uncurled my own fingers and dropped something small in my palm. A set of rings, not heavy or wide as is Skyrim’s preferred style, but thin and very finely wrought. I brought them one and then the other to my eyes to inspect them as she watched. The first was a soft gold, with what I recognized as a Shadowmark, a thief’s mark, stamped into the metal. It had once been set with three stones, but each had been pried out. In contrast, the other was a near-white silver, with three jet black stones set into the band. On the inside of the ring was a symbol I had seen only twice before, on an old stone in the Rift near the mountainside, and on the cover of an old book. A bird, with wings spread up into a curve, and a moon above its head. The detailing was nearly too tiny to see, but I could feel magic rippling through the bands as I rolled them in between my fingers.

“You’re a Nightingale,” I stated, certain now of the lesson being taught. Trust.

Morwen nodded slowly, plucking the rings out of my palm. I watched her slip them daintily back on her fingers, inspecting her fingernails briefly before returning to my eyes. The estate, the ready sacks of gold, the gift she had given me without hesitation when he had first met, the playful evil in her smile when she conned her way out of trouble, the twisted and terrible black bow she wielded. It wasn’t because she fancied herself a lady, it was a necessary game. I wasn’t a stranger to Daedric lords and their demands, and Morwen Nox was a picture of Nocturnal herself. Fitting, selling a soul to a goddess that isn’t yours to sell. The Dragonborn was clever indeed.

“While Thalmor and Empire play cat and mouse, I’ve been keeping myself busy,” she began, shifting in her seat. “Before you came along, it was quite simple, I had no one to- well, I didn’t need to think about anyone else,” the silence thickened the air, but she continued, unhindered. “I felt as if you had a right to know, and after the Thalmor nearly had our heads back there…” I shook my head slowly, rubbing the bridge of my nose with two thick fingers.

"Morwen, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to get rid of me,” I chuckled, plopping my bare feet up onto the low table in front of the hearth. The fire crackled merrily, barely noticed as my heart soared with anticipation. “Listen, you’re quite frightening, really. A true menace to civilization! The mighty and wild Dragonborn will make ash of us yet,” she wrinkled her nose at me as I teased her. “I couldn’t care less if you were the bloody Emperor or the fifth wife of some Orc chief. I’ll call you friend, if you feel that I’m staying by your side out of obligation, alright?”

“I’m afraid I’ll get you killed one day, Kai,” she did sound rather fearful, and her brow furrowed in concern as I gave the thought a laugh. It was an ugly laugh, as I tried not to think about the last time I dared love any woman. What a monster I had made her.

“Then I’ll die with a smile on my face, Dragonborn, for there’s no better dirty, rotten thief I’d rather lay my life down for,” I wanted to say more, to tell her that I was dangerous and that she should leave, or to say nothing at all and instead feel her straddle my waist and thrust myself into her depths, watching her breath become ragged and her tits bounce and her hair fly around her fine face as she found her pleasure. I would tell her I love her then as she panted and recovered from her release, forehead damp and lips meeting mine softly. Instead I gave her a smile. She returned it as footsteps approached from down the empty hall. She sat up straight, away from the heat of my body as her tutor, a wizened old man with a beard to rival a lion’s mane, entered through the open doorway. A low, thundering voice emerged from his weak, wrinkled lips.

“Dragonborn, the dawn has arrived. We would Speak to you.”


	10. The Blind Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a disagreement with the Greybeards, the pair make for the Rift. The Dragonborn has something up her sleeve, but Kaidan can't quite tell what it is yet. Morwen is warming up to Kaidan, in her own way. They reunite with Inigo in Riften's infamous tavern, The Ragged Flagon. A powerful player comes onto the field, and a friend is set to return from distant lands.

It was hard to watch. A ceremony at dawn flooded High Hrothgar with the untapped power of the Thu’um. I was instructed to wait inside, more for my safety than their distrust of me. The Greybeards were a strange, almost saint-like group comprised of the oldest men I had ever seen in my life. Morwen guessed that her favorite, Einarth, was at least ninety years old. And yet, despite their rather loose grip on this mortal coil, the monastery shook with the power of their Voices. I sat in the main hall now, leaning up against a pillar as Morwen laid stomach-down on one of the stone tables that were littered around the space. One of the monks, a wrinkly Imperial that Morwen introduced as Borri, held a curious but all-too familiar contraption in his gnarled hands, and the Dragonborn hissed quietly in pain as an inked needle was repeatedly hammered into the skin on her spine. They had been at it for hours, but Morwen refused to give up. It was tradition, she said through gritted teeth, and the finished product was more than worth it. The monk tattooed a beautiful, fluid image of a wingless dragon down Morwen’s muscled back. I was enjoying the excuse to take in every inch of her bare skin, and she lazily grazed my shins with a limp fingertip, not noticing as my eyes lingered for what felt like hours on the outline of her curves. Her underskirt barely covered her backside, and her legs slipped out of the slits that were cut into it.

Borri wiped a final fleck of blood away from his work, and sealed it proudly with a handful of healing magic. Officially recognized as Dragonborn, Morwen Nox successfully put another title under her belt, but that didn’t mean her training was over. The Greybeards hadn’t thanked her for retrieving their lost relic, barely at that, and an argument broke out a few days later when she was told that she would have to take up the mantle of their way, a vow of non-violence. At first, she argued like a child, sneering and throwing words around cheaply. She brought an iron fist down upon the old man, Einarth, when he told her that she had to choose between her “violent ways,” as he put it, and her training. He relented, but we packed up and left all the same. Still hesitant to return to Whiterun, Morwen asked me how I felt about Riften as we tacked up the horses in Ivarstead. The mountain path was far too dangerous for riding, so we had descended on foot. I took a moment to respond, thinking about the Rift’s forests and peaceful lakes made me miss my father more than I cared to admit.

“I’ll go where you go, Dragonborn, but Riften is a dangerous city.”

“It’s one of the only cities left still free of the Thalmor’s clutches,” she noted, tightening Weir’s girth strap as he sighed loudly. His mane had grown long in the past month or so, and even my own steed, Keena, had grown wild-looking and untamed for all the hard riding and rough nights we spent camping in Skyrim’s wilds. “Besides, I have no intention of staying, as dangerous as you think it is, we’re to fetch Inigo and meet a friend.”

“More friends?” I raised an eyebrow. Morwen laughed at the question as she hopped up on Weir’s saddle, a crisp sound like a song and as enchanting as the rest of her. I mounted Keena, and followed her at a trot out of the village and into the aspen forests we had ridden through at our first meeting. Instead of turning towards the pass, we headed East and then South a bit towards Riften’s gates. The trees towered high above us, golden and swaying in the warm gusts of wind that followed us. A few times Morwen checked on me over her shoulder, and I smiled, but my heart was aching. The man who raised me, Brynjar, gave me some of my best memories here. We had traveled all across Tamriel, but I always felt that the Rift was home. I tried not to dwell as we picked up a lope past the large lake that Riften sits nestled beside, and a handful of minutes later, the city’s walls came into view. 

Grey and hardy, Riften was the last city before the Cyrodillic border, and even as they stand Stalwart against the Empire, Cyrodil’s influence has a grasp on the people and the streets. I had heard two guards mention when I stopped in Morthal before my arrest that the Thieves Guild had a renewed grip on Skyrim’s economy, and as we approached, it was clear that was true. Further still, I suspected that Morwen being Nightingale probably played a very large role in that. The other ring on her right hand had a Shadowmark on the inside of the band, I conjured up the thought from a few days prior, though it was difficult to think of such an innocent detail. The nod that a surly guard at the city gate confirmed all of those thoughts, this city was bought and paid for.

“Hail, Thane,” the other guard saluted in a thick Nordic accent. She wore the purple and brown of Riften’s flag, and a bow upon her back. We trotted up to the stable, a large barn set into the side of the city’s wall. A page took our mounts away after we dismounted, and Morwen pushed a pair of septims into his hands. Today, she wore a riding coat in a deep green, with tufted sleeves and trimmed in a brilliant jacquard. Her leather trousers were clean and crisp, and her boots shined. Both of us had bathed before leaving the monastery, but today Morwen smelled sweeter and her hair shone like a length of black silk. It was done up in a low bun, but a few locks were hanging sweetly around her face. On her shoulders was a black fur, and her hands were gloved in a dyed black doeskin. She looked the part of a lady, and when she caught me staring, I didn’t bother trying to cover it up. She was radiant, and something vicious lurked just beneath the surface of her smile.

We entered the city through her massive iron gates, and the bustling streets opened up to us gladly. The market square up the road was packed with people, and the streets leading up to it were lined with beautiful displays of all different wares and services. Clothiers and armorers displayed their garb proudly, apothecaries and cheesemakers’ shops were buzzing with patrons. The streets were cobbled and not as filthy as I remember them being, but the occasional beggar accented the roadside. I took a few septims out and tossed them to an old man with a grievous scar on his face. He thanked me none, but Morwen gave me a surprisingly soft look as we weaved through the crowds of people. I followed dutifully behind her, nearly losing her a couple of times as she was a head shorter than any Nord. It was only when I felt her delicate hand around my forearm that I could keep up. She greeted people gracefully as with anywhere she went, and gave a hundred equally graceful excuses for not being able to stop and chat with every elderly shopkeeper or curious child. The mid-afternoon sun enveloped her face, and I could see she was home. Not at her estate in Whiterun or in any reach of Skyrim’s wilds, but here. I wondered what home meant to a woman like her.

We successfully cleared the busy main road, and took a quick turn down an alley, and then another down a side road. It had easily been a decade since I had been to Riften, and I grew uneasy as her streets became more and more unfamiliar. We weaved in and out of residential areas, smaller courtyards and parks, down a flight of stairs to the city’s lower level. The water from the lake ran like a canal through and under the city. Down here, homes were more cramped and the sun didn’t reach the many faces. Lanterns crisscrossed overhead, giving a warm glow to the damp streets below our boots. The city was busy, even down here. Many shopkeepers were not Nords, but Dunmer or even Argonian. From a peddler’s shop, three Khajiit children burst from the door in the midst of play, paying no mind to Morwen or myself as they bowled down the road in a fit of giggles. The path become more cramped, and as we rounded a corner and tucked into an alley, I spotted a filthy sign overhead that told me our destination. The Ragged Flagon’s sign held on by one hinge, and depicted a mug of ale that overflowed with foam. A stack of septims sat at the bottom of the illustrated skein, and the corner of the sign was defaced by the same Shadowmark that was stamped on Morwen’s ring. The door to the Thieves Guild swung open for us when Morwen greeted the thug by the door. He gave me a solemn nod as I passed by him; I was nearly overshadowed by his sheer height. Before we ducked into the Flagon, Morwen looked back at me through the hazy lantern light.

“When we’re in there, just, keep being… you,” I made to protest, but Morwen’s hair whipped around as she turned and headed through the low entryway. 

An exceptionally cluttered tavern could hold a surprising amount of patrons, it seems. I looked on in amusement as a dozen tables roared and shook with laughter and conversation, gambling and whoring. It was a delight to my younger self and an affront to the senses. Mead flowed from large casks the size of horses that were lined up on the back wall, a fire-haired Nord and a short Redguard woman both worked behind the bar, filling tankards and wiping down the oaken countertop. A live band of rowdy fiddles and booming drums kept a steady ambience even as the noise of the crowd ebbed and flowed. Morwen had stopped to study the scene much like I did, and her face held nothing but pride.

“Home sweet home,” she winked, before starting towards the bar. My face was slack, and I felt extremely stupid. “Riften’s a dangerous city,” I had warned her. She’s what made it so dangerous. A thief from core to carapace. A few patrons in that same brown leather thief’s uniform greeted her enthusiastically - but mostly drunkenly. It took a moment to spot her path, but I saw what she was heading for, lit up like a scene from an oil painting. In the light of a low iron chandelier, Inigo sat surrounded by onlookers, fuzzy brow furrowed intently at a handful of playing cards. He guarded them close to his chest, and only looked up to watch his opponent make their move. All I could see was the crowd around them, I couldn’t get a glimpse of who sat across from him. As we approached, I heard the familiar sound of gamblers placing bets. I recognized the game when we came upon the table - a Highrock favorite called Alouette. I felt my palms start to itch.

“Ah! Morwen! There is still time to deal for one more, would you like to join?” Inigo beamed at Morwen as we squeezed through the onlookers.

“I’m afraid not, Lady Blackbriar plays a terrible Madame,” Morwen purred as she rounded the table. In the chair opposite our Khajiit friend, a hawk-faced woman with a terrible glare holds a nine-card hand in her manicured fingers. Her greying black hair was pulled into a bun as tight as a bowstring, and her eyes were angry pits of deep amber. Lady Blackbriar’s square jaw was clenched hard enough to grind flour, and she looked up at me with renewed disdain. I stood up straighter, towering easily over the crowd. I tightened my jaw and met her eyes harshly.

"Guildmaster Nox, how lovely for you to drag me into your lair during bottling season,” Blackbriar started, crisp voice almost lazy in a highborn drawl. “I’ve had to leave things with Indaryn, such a terrible overseer. I’d frame him for something just to be rid of the bastard, but I find your prices much too lofty,” the woman sneered as she shuffled her cards around before placing them face down on the table. Her fine garb was a quilted purple cotton, and finished with an expensive golden trim. I understood now the special occasion for Morwen’s finery. Lady Maven Blackbriar of Blackbriar Meadery lifted her nose up at me, beady eyes scanning my borrowed armor and tattooed face.

“Who have you brought with you, then? I thought the Flavius boy was your guest of choice,”

“Protection, a girl can’t be too careful,” Morwen looked up at me apologetically, “he won’t be coming with us, Lucien should be here within the day.”

“Very well, I’ve arranged for your invitation to Lady Elenwen’s Summer Gala,” Maven shooed the patrons around the table away, and Inigo scooped the cards into a big pile and began shuffling them idly. “I shouldn’t have to remind you that you have a week to arrive in Solitude, not arouse suspicion, play the noble lady, do whatever reckless task you’ve got planned, and get out with both my family’s and my personal reputation unscathed. I will not buy your way out of trouble again, do I make myself clear?”

In the light from the chandelier and some errant lanterns hanging from the low ceiling, Morwen’s old scar shone like a river across her cheek. She lowered her gaze for a split second, before meeting Maven’s once again.

“Crystal.”

Maven produced an envelope from an inside pocket of her outer robes. It was sealed with a rich purple stamp, and was rather thick to be just a letter. Morwen plucked it with quick hands and secured it in her own pocket with a grin. I kept my mouth shut, wanting to howl like a wounded dog. I would remember the name anywhere; Lady Elenwen was the name of the Thalmor ambassador operating in Skyrim. She had authorized countless arrests and presumably, my own imprisonment and torture. Morwen planned on infiltrating Thalmor high society, and she had enlisted one of the most powerful women in Skyrim to do it. As Maven rose to her feet and bid a rather friendly farewell to Inigo, I could do nothing but follow Morwen towards and then past the bar, to an unassuming wooden door with a curious lock above the handle. It was an iron circle, emblazoned with the Nightingale’s seal. She aligned her thin fingers with the tips of the bird’s wings and tail, and the door unlocked with click that was silent under the noise of the tavern. Down a long hallway constructed of old mortared stone and around a corner, we emerged in the heart of Skyrim’s Thieves Guild.


	11. Diplomatic Impurity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The writhing and vibrant streets of Riften's Undercity welcome Guildmaster Morwen Nox back with open arms. Kaidan and Morwen share a moment of weakness. Bestest of friends Lucien and Morwen are reunited after months of their different endeavors keeping them apart. Kaidan storms off after Morwen announces the details of her plan to infiltrate Thalmor High Society. Morwen explores some urges that prove Kaidan may be more than just her shield. Without the brooding hunter, Inigo, Morwen, and Lucien are poised to make for Solitude for Elenwen's summer gala.

The Ragged Flagon connected directly with the Ratway’s Cistern, which served as headquarters for The Thieves Guild. I hated to bring work into personal business, but it was quickly becoming a necessary resource. Kaidan followed me down the hall and through the archway leading to the main Cistern, and his jaw had gone slack as he looked upon the Guild. Large curved walls like the inside of a barrel stretched into a large, vaulted ceiling. Underneath the various paths and platforms built atop it, a series of canals ran under our feet as we stood at the entrance. The massive space was filled with a city of its own, with shops and small homes made of scavenged timber and lit with brilliant strings of light - some magic, some not - weaving about overhead. Thieves of all races and creeds made their living here, and it was hard to hide the pride on my face.

“I’m no stranger to the underbelly of Tamriel, but I must say, this is unlike anything I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Kaidan stated, his eyes hungrily taking in the bustling scene in front of us. When I brought him here at first, I expected him to judge us. These were my people, filthy and rotten and greedy to the bone. I made my fortune in Skyrim by stealing what I pleased, and as Guildmaster, I now took a hefty cut of the spoils. It was riches I was after at first, but something inside me was hungry for more than gold. I wanted to be more than a girl of the wilds. I had my chance to climb even higher now, even if it did mean being in Maven Blackbriar’s debt.

“I’d show you around, but we’ve got work to do,” I beckoned Kaidan to follow as I took the left path from the door into an alley built out of small apartments and cramped shops. Illegal wares lined the shop’s hazy windows, beautiful and vibrant bolts of cloth were displayed from another, thieves and citizens of the Undercity went about their days with a glint in their eyes, knowing that the gold was flowing now more than it ever had before. We had the Daedric prince of shadow, Nocturnal, and her gilded luck on our side now, at the expense of the souls of a select few of our best thieves. They were Nightingales like me, now. Agents of night. None of them were lucky enough to sell a dragon’s soul in place of their own. As we crossed through the intersection of a perpendicular street, I caught a glimpse of the Nightingale banners that were strung up high on the roof of the Cistern.

Kaidan’s brow was low on his face as we weaved in and out of alleys and small streets, and I could tell he was frustrated. I hadn’t told him my plans to go after the Thalmor, and I feared that his trust in me would wane as quickly as I had gained it. As we arrived at my own apartments, he didn’t hide his anger for very long after the door had shut behind us. I hadn’t even time to take my boots off before he began to scold me.

“You’re a shit liar, I hope you know that,” he barked, keeping a bit of distance from me in the main foyer of my home as I spun around to look at him.

“I’m a bloody good liar,” I purred, though I immediately saw in his eyes he was in no mood for games. His heavy eyebrows angled downwards towards his nose, and his lips were pulled into a nasty frown. “You think I should have run this by you, then?”

“Run this by me? Run this by me?! Morwen, you’re headed into the lion’s den, to eat little cakes and drink expensive wine with the woman who ordered my torture, perhaps my death,” Kaidan angrily pulled his scabbard strap over his shoulder, and tossed his sword aside. His bow followed, before he took a step closer to me, pointing a finger at my chest. “You didn’t even stop to consider what they’d do to you if you’re caught, or if they recognize me…” he ran half-gloved fingers through his hair, which was loose and hung like a curtain of warm black silk. He relaxed his face a touch, but defeat was written on it as I let him catch his breath. I did consider it, of course, but I didn’t correct him.

“Did you even stop for a second and think about how dangerous this is?”

I shifted my weight, plopping a hand on my hip and relaxing the opposite leg. The extravagant foyer of my apartment was completely lost in his anger. The luxuries that decorated the space seemed so silly as he sighed, exasperated by my choices. I shouldn’t have pressed him, but I found myself unable to apologize for being as stubborn as I was.

“Of course I had thought it, but I imagine you think you’re entitled to some sort of vengeance because Elenwen held you captive, is that it? A killer through and through, you are, I should have guessed,” I snapped, and immediately tried to apologize. I was too slow. 

The hunter closed the gap between us like a wolf keeping a chase. I expected him to hurt me, to make me small and fragile as any angry man before him had done. I was surprised, and confused, when he collided with me and wrapped his arms around my form, and pulled me close. I could feel his heartbeat roaring in his chest, the strength rippling through his muscles, the heat from his skin. A sob shook his chest as I placed my hands near his heart, and I whispered an apology to the still air, resting my head on his abdomen. He had grabbed me with such force that he now held me in between his body and the dresser that was set up against the dividing wall between the foyer and the rest of the space. I pulled him into me, and the physics dictated that I lifted myself to sit on the cluttered surface, pushing keys and a stack of papers out of the way to do so. My legs found a fit almost wrapped around his as he stood in front of me, still holding me close. I looked up at him, and his tanned cheek bore a few stray tears. I wicked them away with a gentle hand, and he leaned into my palm as he brought his face closer to mine. His stark amber eyes were locked onto mine, eyelids low and brows lifted upwards. I nearly pressed my lips to his, and I felt him lean into me to return the gesture, before a familiar and polite cough made both of our heads snap towards the sound.

“Oh dear, am I interrupting?” Lucien Flavius stood a few feet away from our tangled forms as he rounded the corner into the foyer. Even in the low light, his fine features were as stark as sunlight. An Imperial in both birth and mannerism, Lucien was a handsome man in his early twenties, with fair skin and brilliant blue eyes that twinkled like sapphires under his manicured brows. He had golden hair like spun silk, and his lean form was dressed in a relaxed but beautifully-embroidered tunic, with a heavy wool housecoat of a similar fine make over top. He wore his preferred green and gold tones, and a beautifully-wrought amulet of the Flavius family crest rested upon his proud chest. He was a picture of nobility, which is the main reason why I had summoned him here.

“Lucien!” I gasped, quickly unfolding from Kaidan’s hold as he released his arms from my form and took a large step backwards. I hopped off the dresser and flung my arms around him, holding my friend close after months apart. He had been carrying on his research in an ancient Dwarven ruin, but was happy to answer my call when I had written to him about the gala.

“It’s so good to see you, Morwen,” he squeezed me back, a familiar and rich cologne drifting from the crook in his neck. I pulled away, keeping my hands on his narrow shoulders before turning to face Kaidan.

“This is-” I started. Kaidan interrupted.

“My name is Kaidan, pleasure to meet you,” he said with surprising grace. Was he standing up taller?

“Very lovely to make your acquaintance, Kaidan,” Lucien gave a graceful bow, catching my eye for a moment before clapping his hands together with a smile. 

“I’ve been here for a day or so, I took the liberty of having the place maintained for you, I hope you don’t mind,” Lucien lead the way into the main living space of the apartment, and we followed behind his graceful strides.

The apartment was fit for a noble, mostly because I made a point to steal from the more fortunate population of Skyrim. The entire apartment was made up of closely-stacked stone bricks, and the low hallway of the foyer gave way to the high ceilings and sunken floor plan of the living space. Overstuffed cushions of brilliant brocades and rich woven blankets and poofs surrounded a roaring firepit in the very centre of the room, and to the right on a raised floor was the kitchen and bar counter. In between the kitchen and the curved bookshelves I had custom-made for the space was the hall that lead towards the bath, and a path that mirrored it on the other side lead to the guest rooms. In the raised left corners of the room were a desk and a workspace respectively, usually covered in letters and books and alchemical ingredients, now tidy at Lucien’s hand. The ceilings were lofty and draped in rich curtains and bunting of all colors and textures, and an enchanted chandelier leaked magelight down into the main space. It flickered and pulsed like a candle, but held every color on the spectrum within its iron cage. The cold stone floor was covered in rich, plush carpets, and the walls decorated in paintings and various tapestries I had collected throughout my travels. The air was usually heavy with incense, but just a faint smell of it remained as I had been gone for several months. I felt at home, and as my heart still pounded from my moment alone with Kaidan, I stole a long look at his chiseled face. He looked hurt, and I couldn’t blame him.

Kaidan followed my lead as I stripped off my traveling gear, placing my fur and capelet on its hook and removing my boots in favor of my bare feet against the stone. I unloaded my satchel onto the bar in the kitchen and snatched a handful of bottles from the honeycombed shelf next to the small larder box. I placed one in Lucien’s hands as I descended the handful of steps into the conversation pit in the middle of the room, then offered one to Kaidan, who silently accepted. We lounged among the plush floor pillows and soft blankets, listening to the echoing of the fire as it crackled happily in its pit, the sound bouncing off of the round walls. I took a few sips of the cider I had pulled for myself, half-listening to Lucien ramble giddily about his months away in Solstheim.

“-and you do of course remember the room with all of the seemingly useless buttons and knobs? It turned out to be some sort of advanced code to tell the machines what to build. Of course, the Daedra possessing the machines could automate all of that planning, so I imagine it wasn’t used very much, but…are you listening?” Lucien’s voice was sweet and proper, but it did tend to get tuned out when he started to speak faster than I could process the words.

“Of course I’m listening, darling, you were saying something about Daedra,” I said lazily, rubbing a bit of sleep out of my eyes as the afternoon began to wane. Lucien had taken up study of the Dwemer ruin of Dumzbthar, one we had explored together to find out that it had been possessed by a Daedric entity for the sake of efficiency and automation. It was quite fascinating, but I’ve never been much of a scholar. We barely got out with our lives, and since leaving, Lucien seems to really have come into his own. He was cowardly and meek when we first met, but a polished and confident young man sat across from me now. I treasured him deeply, he was one of my greatest friends. In a week’s time, I’d lead him directly into the clutches of a dangerous enemy.

“So about this gala, what exactly couldn’t you tell me in writing?” Lucien inquired between sips from the bottle I handed him. I took a swig from my own, deliberately avoiding looking at Kaidan’s reaction.

“You and I are to attend the summer gala of Lady Elenwen, the Thalmor ambassadress to Skyrim,” I began. To this, Lucien clasped his hands together and sighed wistfully.

“Oh, I love galas! My mother and father would take me to all sorts of parties, and soirees, and teas! I have mastered the art of conversation, you know, I expect to outshine even you in that regard.”

“We’re not going for pleasure, there are some documents I need to retrieve and you mustn’t tell a soul who I am. This is…a personal matter, and we need to do this safely.”

Lucien frowned slightly, realizing he wasn’t called all the way here for just a social visit. I’d make it up to him later. 

“I see,” he started, “and I’m assuming we’re not supposed to chat with anyone there?”

“You certainly can, we’re to enter the gala together, but I’ll have to leave you to socialize and make up for my absence once we’re inside. We’ll come as a couple as not to arouse any suspicion on why Maven’s previously unknown youngest daughter is now showing up with the son of a prominent Legionnaire and Imperial Scholar,” Kaidan shifted slightly, and I kept my eyes away from him. “You and I will be engaged to be married, and we’ll act the happiest of lovebirds until Elenwen’s prying eyes are away from us.”

“You’re going to lie to the ambassadress of the Thalmor?” he laughed richly, taking a deep drink from his bottle to finish it. “My friend, that must be the most insane idea I’ve ever heard.”

“I agree,” Kaidan growled, finally joining in.

“Your face is on every wanted poster from Understone Keep to the Blue Palace, my friend, they’ll recognize you in an instant.”

“Aye, I don’t like this,” Kaidan’s brow furrowed as he spoke. I finally chanced a look in his direction, and he looked like he might start smoking at the ears.

“I thought you might say that, which is why I’m to visit that flesh mage in the Ratway to have her change my face, albeit temporarily,” we’ll only be in Skyrim’s craggy West for a few weeks, which will give just enough time before the powerful Alteration magic wears off of my disguise. Lucien responded with a thoughtful smile, reveling in the beauty of the plan. Kaidan nearly exploded.

“A mage?! She’ll pervert that face of yours and, I dunno, harvest your organs to feed to her pet ravens. You’re absolutely mad, Dragonborn,” Kaidan barked, making Lucien jump.

“Mad? It’s brilliant,” I responded sharply, rolling my eyes at his caution. It was my plan, after all, and I won’t have him insult it.

“And what would that Blackbriar shrew ask of you in return for this invitation? She’s got half of Skyrim in her pockets, thanks to-”

“Thanks to me, Kai! I’m the reason this guild has any two septims to rub together, she’s only asked for some mindless shilling on her part should the civil war ever come to a summit. It’s just business-”

“No, it’s bloody idiocy!” Kaidan retorted, and I felt my heart drop. I felt a wounded expression paint itself on my face, but he continued before I could interrupt.

“I won’t let you. That mage will kill you, or worse. Or the Thalmor will find you out and make that butcher look like a pleasant dream. It’s too dangerous,” Kaidan was sitting up now, shoulders hunched and arms folded across his massive chest, like he had gave me his decision on the matter and I was to obey. I felt my face become hot with rage.

“You won’t let me?!” I nearly shrieked, causing a small whimper to come from Lucien’s direction. “I don’t recall marrying you or being sold to you, so what gives you the right to allow me to do anything?”

“I never said-” Kaidan started as I stood up. I cut him off.

“You’ve said enough!” I rebuked, hair escaping from my bun and flying wildly around my head as I jabbed a finger in his direction, before stalking up the stairs to the main level, snatching my bag from the kitchen counter, and stomping off towards the main bedroom. Lucien began to say something as I walked away, but his sentence trailed off as I shot daggers at him, nearly screaming a curt goodnight and slamming the double doors to my suite shut. Silence from the other side made me feel guilty. I brushed the feeling off as I unbuttoned my riding shirt and tossed it aside. I took in the room through watery eyes after months away from home.

The master bedroom was a massive, double-winged room just as lavishly decorated as the rest of the apartment. Directly in front of me was a divider covered in silk drapery, and behind that was a grand four-poster bed. The stone walls were covered in more drapery and tapestries, paintings and shelves cluttered with keepsakes and treasures. A dressing space was situated next to the bed, with a hanging shelf and dresser packed full of gowns, tunics, breeches and underthings. My armor was stored in the workshop back through the main space, but I didn’t need to worry about mending dents or tears in my gear for a few weeks at least. Low couches and poofs littered the stone floor, which was covered in carpets and throws much like the living space. My bare feet were silent as I drifted over to a chaise next to the bed, and threw myself petulantly down upon it. I slicked a few stray tears away, tucking my hair behind my ears before slipping my trousers off and then my short cotton undershirt. I unlaced my underthings and tossed them in a hamper, before meandering over to a small table that was stocked with my favorite wines and a few fruits that Lucien had brought down from the market for me. I smiled weakly at his thoughtfulness, promising myself to apologize to him for my tantrum before we departed tomorrow.

I intended to have Kaidan travel with us, but now I wasn’t even sure if he’d be here when I woke tomorrow. The past few months had made us inseparable, and his company was as sure as stone. My heart fluttered, wounded by our row as I poured myself a goblet of red wine, popped a slice of some citrus fruit in my mouth, and drifted towards the left wing of the suite. It was a large, open space with a low bath in a soft “L” shape set into the corner of the stone-bricked room. It was heated and cooled by magic, controlled by a beautifully carved tap handle set into the wall next to it, depicting the tails of two merfolk creatures in a wonderfully-wrought scene of two lovers in shining copper. The left and right tails twisted to control the water, and their upper halves were tangled in a kiss, beautiful curly hair cascading down their naked backs. It was a gift from Maven’s pompous idiot of a son, Hemming, in his bid to marry me and fill me with his sniveling children. I turned on the hot water and stood stark naked, watching the bath fill and sipping my wine with a frown on my face. The scent of various perfumes and oils filled the air, and I caught a glimpse of my form in the mirror that stood on a stand in the corner of the room.

I looked older when I was upset. My father’s cheek lines now traced my face as I caught my own reflection at the eyes, creating a shadow around my thick lips. My body was thinner since I had left with Kaidan for the Pale, and I counted three weeks since we had been away from the Elysium in Whiterun. My mother’s pale purplish-blue eyes stared back at me from under thick black eyebrows, and my scar glistened in the low candlelight. My shoulders were strong, my muscles defined, my hips gently curved outwards, seductive and grown. Scars new and old shone on my warm skin, reminders of past mistakes. I was just barely twenty years old, my name day having passed just before meeting Kaidan. On that day, I felt childish and new. Today, I felt cold and small. The future holds such terrifying things, and I didn’t feel ready for any of it. I thought of my traveling companion, his broody russet eyes and easy smile. His voice was low and powerful when he spoke to me, and I felt a warmth in between my bare thighs as I remembered the way he grasped me earlier that day. An ache I had felt bubble under the surface at the sight of him. I shifted my weight from one leg to another, feeling a sensitive bundle of nerves shiver at the attention.

The bath threatened to spill over as it filled, and I swiftly closed the flow of water from the tap and proceeded to melt into the steaming pool. My muscles unclenched, and my hair hit the water with a soft plunk as I pulled the pin that held it. I took another sip of wine before placing the goblet at the side of the bath and sinking further into the water, with only my nose above the surface. It was hard to remember to be angry now, as I let my fingers travel down my soft abdomen, further until I grazed the nub at the top of my sex, perky and almost like velvet to the touch. I let out a low exhale, as I began to drag my fingers delicately in circles around it, parting my supple, fuzzy folds. I purred as I rubbed closer to the heat between my thighs, a slick and ready opening hungrily accepting my fingers as I pushed them inside.

I thought of Kaidan, his rippling muscles pressed firmly against me as his manhood found my entrance and enjoyed it thoroughly, laying between my legs and burying his cock into the wetness between them. It looked so present, so strong, from under his trousers. I moaned louder as I thought of what it may look like bare in front of me, my volume taking a lower priority to my pleasure as the need for release mounted in my belly. I slid another finger inside, curling it upwards and rocking my hips to stimulate the sensitive muscles just inside. The water lapped up onto the side of the pool as I moved, gasping and quivering as the sensation made the walls of my sex tighten and pulse. A thought snapped across my mind, perhaps as it did for maids on their wedding night, fear and excitement bringing me to release as I wondered what it would feel like as he had his own release inside of me, filling me deeply and gasping for air as I did now. 

The walls of the place between my legs tightened and released in a powerful, practiced rhythm. I caught my breath, slowing my pulse as I slipped my fingers out from inside of me. A final shutter brought me a sleepy sort of peace. I finished bathing and set to work wringing out my long, dark hair before pulling the drain to the bath and replacing my nudity with a richly-dyed robe. I chose a spiced perfume for tomorrow’s preparations, and secured the robe with a sash around my waist before braving the living space outside. Inigo had joined us from the Flagon sometime while I was sulking, and Lucien gracefully welcomed me to the fire as I asked to join their revelry. Inigo was about halfway through acting out a rather lewd playscript from a copy he found in my library, all on his own, and had conscripted and was suggestively moving upon a broomstick to further the imagery.

“Surely this isn’t the only theater piece Skyrim has ever produced? There must be something more?” Lucien nearly pleaded through a fit of mortified giggles. Inigo ignored him to finish his suggestive dialogue, switching from one character with a cooking pot for a hat he had scavenged, and the other character with a high-pitched voice that cracked as he laughed at himself. 

“I’m afraid this is it for the kind of theater you’re used to, Lucien,” I said wittily, and Inigo let out a roguish laugh, full and bright a sound from his brilliant purple face.

“I object to that!” Lucien whined through another burst of laughter, but Inigo and I were already howling at his contorted frown failing to hide his grin. He put a hand on my shoulder as he caught his breath. Inigo had bounded off to find the next volume of the play, and a moment of quiet descended on us.

“Kaidan?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“He left a few minutes after you stormed off,” Lucien confirmed, giving me a sympathetic smile under sad eyes. I nodded, feeling a sadness of my own creep up on me.

“I’m sorry for turning on you, you weren’t at fault…” I began, but instead of finishing my sentence, I collapsed into my friend’s arms, allowing his soft heart to comfort my wounded one as he placed his chin on top of my head, kissing my hair and stroking my shoulder with his thumb.

“It’s alright, my dear friend,” he let me go as I pulled away, his pleasant smile returning and coaxing mine as Inigo returned with a grin and my favorite lute that I had left leaning up against the wardrobe in the guest room. He waited for me to straighten up before tossing it by the neck into my lap. I sighed and agreed to play as he offered a hand to Lucien, light feet pointed and poised to dance.

“Dance with me, my friend! For tomorrow, we pack our bags and head into the golden maw of the gods.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to pop in and say thank you for reading so far! It makes me really happy to see people enjoying my work, and I would love to hear prompts/requests/suggestions for future chapters. This has been a blast to write so far, and I'm grateful for your time and kind words!! ❣️


	12. False Pretenses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan kept an eye on the trio as they made for Solitude. Morwen doesn't appear to have forgiven him for their argument, but has at least accepted his arrival as the clutches of the Thalmor are too close to reveal her cards. Kaidan takes on a disguise, much like the Dragonborn has, and heads into the open, gnashing maw of Skyrim's teetering political landscape. The Summer Gala awaits.

She was beautiful. Silken and ablaze in the morning sun. From the hill above the main road, I watched the Dragonborn mount an unfamiliar horse, dressed in a Cyrodillic gown of delicate, orange tones, and cloaked in a fine embroidered linen, with her companions riding on either side of her. From my perch behind a large rock as I looked on, I could hear her laughter and remember the smell of her hair when she tucked her head into my chest. Her distant face was different though, magic altering her fine features into harsh ones like that of the Black Briar clan. I had a precious thing in my hands and I crushed it like glass. I broke another promise. The Rift’s aspen forests mocked me with soft laughter as the leaves rustled on their thin branches, a soundtrack for my sulking as I followed the trio along the main road from Riften’s core. It was a week’s trek from Riften to Solitude proper, but they kept up a solid pace through the forests North despite Morwen riding sidesaddle on her cream-colored steed. It was a daintier beast than Weir, who had no doubt been hidden somewhere away from Riften as not to draw any connections should she be found out. I had left Keena with a family at a small farm on the lake, paying them what a year’s worth of crops would sell for and insisting they use her for errands if they needed to until I returned for her. Their children, boys of two and four, asked me all sorts of questions. They asked if I was an adventurer, or a knight. I had no answer to give, and I wept as I left the farm behind me.

They camped carefully as I had taught, only using dry fuel for fires to not cause smoke to pillar, and sweeping away evidence of footprints. When they had stopped at an inn near Windhelm, I pulled a hood over my head and chanced an evening being so close, and yet so far away from her. I watched her and Lucien as he taught her a dance she didn’t know, a graceful set of hops and bows and the tangling of their hands as they pressed their foreheads together when the music ended. I was more than jealous, I felt like a stake had been driven through my gut. She was radiant, beautiful, tumultuous, clever, brave, but she wasn’t mine. I couldn’t see her being anybody’s, for that matter. When she pulled a pretty tavern girl down the hall and into her room, giggling and stealing kisses as they went, I paid my bill and left in a flurry of jealousy and defeat. I couldn’t hold it against her.

A day or so passed, and there was no work to be found in any villages nearby. Morwen, Inigo and Lucien had continued on their journey through to Morthal, but I could hardly bear to lift a boot in their direction to close the gap. When I finally traced their path, I discovered them resting near the settlement of Stonehills. I peered through a curtain of mossy trees into the river she bathed in, her bare skin lathered in bubbles that seeped into the water around her. Gods, I tried to leave her be, but my eyes followed the curve of her body down to the surface of the river as it flowed around her ankles. I had heard from a whore in Skingrad that some noble wives let their husbands pleasure them with their tongues; she turned away from me as I thought of it, almost like she knew it would tease me, bending to reveal only a shadow of the flower between her legs. The final stretch of their journey came with my finding of a cutthroat lurking in the bushes near their campsite just south of Dragon Bridge.

“Not so sneaky now, are you?” I growled as I grasped the Bosmer man by the throat before he could loose an arrow that would find her chest. She and her companions were lounging around a fire, Lucien and her particularly close as the evening breeze flowed across the plateau. Below, the Karth River roared and gurgled as it emptied into Solitude’s bay. I told myself that it was because Elenwen’s eyes were sure to be upon them, though I had stopped believing the lie before I told it. The assassin’s life left his eyes from behind a leather hood and mask. I tossed his body aside, being sure to snatch the contract from his belongings before slinking off into the shadow, towards my own camp a fraction of a league away.

Solitude was a city built on fool’s gold. An arch the size of a titan held the upper-class section aloft over the great bay, and in the water below it, hundreds of ships came to and from the piers. They carried passengers and cargo alike, crates of mead and flats of lumber, barrels of oil and bolts of cloth. Most grand ships emptied their innards and departed, though some meandered into the massive cave mouth under the city, into the grand East Empire Warehouse within. I could smell the stench of politics from here, its filthy streets seep gold and blood into the waters below. The structure of the city itself was massive, dominating most of the Northern coast like a blanket of tiled roofs and paved streets. At its head, the Blue Palace sat like the gaudy earrings of an aging aunt upon the very tip of the arch, home to the future High Queen of Skyrim and her court. The Palace itself wouldn’t host the gala, but instead a grand temple once built to honour Talos was repurposed into a ballroom and grand entertaining hall. I spat to the ground at the thought of the Thalmor parading their agenda inside the very building they emptied of its Faithful.

I didn’t exactly have a plan, once I had gotten to Solitude, but I hadn’t gritted my teeth through the flesh mage’s torture for nothing. My eyes were now a gentler shape and a harsh blue color, and my tattoo had been wiped from my cheek like a blank sheet of parchment. I had the elf change my hair as well, shearing a few inches of length from the ends and making it fall in brown waves. The rest of my savings had gone to the changes, and I could only hope it was worth it. Morwen and Inigo fussed over a tear in her riding gown outside of Solitude’s grand stables as I approached. I “borrowed” a set of fine steel armor from a bandit outside of Kynesgrove, and even spent an evening by a small fire polishing it until it shone. I shaved my beard to just a finger’s width, and brushed and pinned my hair back into a low bun. Perhaps I looked like my father would have at my age, but when I checked my reflection in a passing window, I only saw sorrow.

I saw Morwen now, though, and she caught my gaze just as Lucien rounded the back end of the carriage that was waiting for them. Inigo said something to her with a shrug as he gave up trying to pin the trim back onto her skirts, before turning around to see what she was staring at. I stopped when I was in speaking distance, waiting for her to strike me across the face or burst into tears. Instead, Inigo greeted me with a smile, and Lucien clasped his hands together and sighed to himself.

“You look a picture of a knight, my friend,” Lucien’s smile was sincere as he took in my arrival. Morwen smiled as well, graceful and fabricated as her eyes flitted over to the nearby guardsman dressed in Solitude’s colors. We were being watched. The other two were already in the loop, and Inigo’s skill with words was heard throughout the courtyard as he spoke a little too loudly on purpose. Even he was dressed in finery that could rival a prince’s. His broad purple chest was visible under a flowing shirt of puffy cotton, and over that he wore an embroidered vest in a deep turquoise. The trousers were in a style popular in High Rock, the crotch low and the fabric rich in patterns, and he wore punched-leather slippers in a deep brown. Armbands of gold and studded with jewels wrapped around his biceps, and his bracelets matched and clinked on his wrists as he gestured to me.

“Ah! My lady, the bodyguard you hired to keep your valuables safe has arrived! These Nords are very impressive!” he returned my thankful glance as the four of us reunited under false pretenses. I understood the part I had to play, and I wasn’t about to watch the Dragonborn walk into fire once more without me behind her. No matter how much perfume it meant I had to wear.

“Very well, ser, my things are in the chest with the copper fittings. Do keep a close eye on it, my mother would be most displeased if anything were to go missing,” she tossed her pretty head towards the carriage, and I bowed low as I had seen highborn knights and housecarls do in our travels. 

“As you wish, my lady.”

Satisfied with the ruse, she thanked Lucien for holding the carriage door open for her as she and her expensive skirts piled into the cabinet. Lucien followed, but not before placing a firm hand on my shoulder and giving me a nod. I bowed in return, closing the carriage door behind the couple before rounding on Inigo, who beamed at my presence.

“It is good that you have arrived, Ser Kastav,” Inigo raised an eyebrow at me, and I put on the figurative mask he gave me. “I will stay out here with the horses to ensure her grace’s safe return to Cyrodil.”

“Very well,” I concluded the act tersely, signalling the carriage driver to make for the massive stone arch that lead into the city. The pair of horses jumped to life at the snap of their reins, and I hazarded a chuckle as I heard Lucien’s cry of fear from inside the carriage. I followed dutifully behind the carriage as it bounced up the cobbled path. Solitude lay ahead of us, and it had every reason to fear the Lady Nox.


	13. Company to Keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solitude doesn't agree with Kaidan. Disguised as one Ser Kastav, a discussion between he and Lucien leads Kaidan to a brothel by the name of The Nixie and Knight, where he meets an Altmer with his finger in a number of pies. The night before the gala, Kai explores a pleasure previously unknown to him after months of pent up feelings for Morwen.

Solitude was unsurprisingly chaotic. The city’s gently sloping main road wound its way up the hill to the upper class district, known as the Spire. Citizens went about their day, some stopping to gawk as lords and ladies from all over Skyrim and beyond rolled into the folds of Solitude in their carriages and on grand steeds. I followed the carriage to the peak, where the Blue Palace teetered upon the edge of the world over its eroded stone arch. The sounds of daily life here nearly blocked out the sounds of the docks below, but the slow and haunting bells of the East Empire Company’s warehouse were clear even half a league into the sky. Around us, buildings of timber and dark brick sprung up along the main street like jagged teeth, squished together to fit the ever-growing population of the hold. No doubt the Jarl of Solitude, Elisif, was a Nord by blood, but the frivolities of royalty were not lost on the Legion garrisons here as well as the nobility. Soldiers in fine, expensive-looking armor loitered around taverns and shops, enchanting pretty maids in Cyrodillic dresses with tales of savage Nords from their travels. The sea air was salty in my nose and on my tongue, but even as wild and hardy as the Northern city may be, Imperial influence bled out of every crack and crevice. It was like stepping into Cyrodil’s capital even more so than it was Skyrim’s, and that was just a taste of the Spire ahead.

The carriage came to a halt outside of a considerably large manor built in the same dark, refined brick as the rest of the city. Below us, it stretched out for miles like a sea of tiled roofs, pleasure gardens, cathedrals, markets, and slums. The Blackbriar manor sat nestled in a roundabout surrounding a massive walking garden. Directly across from where we had stopped was the glittering Blue Palace, each wing of the building forming a crescent moon shape that dominated nearly a half of the Spire, splattered with stained glass windows and stretches of ivy. Solitude didn’t agree with me just as much as I didn’t agree with it, and I was thankful for the cramped, tall and thin rooms of the manor as we made our way inside. It was an estate house, Lucien explained as we moved chests in from the carriage to the bedrooms, they’re not meant to be comfortable. There were four in all, one for each of us and Inigo once he made his way into the city later that afternoon. Khajiit needed a special pass for entering the city, one Morwen set to work on forging while Lucien and I caught our breath.

“Well, I think that’s all of them,” Lucien heaved as he rested his hands on his knees in the manor’s entryway. The space was cramped but finely decorated. To the left after entering was a sitting room with a hearth set into the wall, and behind there a kitchen. To the right were stairs to the other floors, and directly ahead was a hallway that lead to the manor’s bath hall and a balcony that looked out over the bay. Nothing indicated anyone lived here, except for the fact that there was no dust or wear on any one surface in the entire home. Trinkets on shelves and hallway tables were angled neatly, the hearth was clean and free of soot, the rugs were vibrant as if they had just been beaten, and the dark wooden floors shone despite their obvious wear. I looked over at Morwen, who was studying a piece of parchment set out on a low coffee table with a furrowed brow.

“I’m sure it won’t fool the agents at the gate, but it’s really hit or miss whether city guards can actually read, so…” she crossed her arms and scrunched her nose, a clear indicator of her criticizing her handiwork. In her hand, she held the black quill that had been given to her by Jarl Elisif.

“Won’t he be recognizable anyway, seeing as he’s, well, a bright purple cat?” I managed to catch her eye for the first time since meeting her at the gate. It was like looking at a calm lake, knowing something lurked underneath the waters.

“I’m counting on it, actually,” she began, smirking slightly. “Since running jobs with the Guild, he’s quickly become Maven’s favorite. He’s here to ruffle a few feathers for her while Lucien and I-”

“Cavort?” I offered, and regretted it instantly.

“Socialize,” she curled her upper lip into a snarl. “Need I remind you, Ser, that you’re here on your own terms, not because you were asked.” Her eyes drifted pointedly from my changed face to my shining armor, an array of beautifully embossed plate and soft rabbit lining.

“Besides, the guard won’t dare threaten Maven’s guest once he’s in there. It’s almost safe for me to show up as myself, seeing as there’s more bullshit social protocol here than an Aldmeri wedding. They’d have to do a little dance and snog each others’ mustached mugs before they would be allowed to lay a hand on him,” I snorted, and Lucien gave a chuckle as well as he drifted into the living room to sit down on one of the overstuffed armchairs, and I followed, sinking into a seat far too small for me. Like Morwen, he was dressed in finery that could rival any king. A fine cotton tunic of deep, forest green trimmed with an Elven-made jacquard of gold and blue was hidden slightly underneath a floor-length, sleeveless overcoat in the same murky purple that Morwen wore. Her gown was finer still, its gentle mauve fabric gathered in a heavenly, outward shape at the waist and tailored perfectly at the torso. Her breasts rose and fell from under the low neckline of the dress, and the sleeves started at her mid-bicep and were brought in with a small bit of lace at her wrists. She had been wearing a traveling jacket of the same color, but abandoned it as soon as she was out of the sun. Her tanned skin beaded with sweat where her breasts were forced together by the tight bodice. A small charm around her neck was the finishing touch, a suitor’s gift generally only worn if the affection of said suitor is accepted. I was staring. The leather underneath me creaked as I shifted and my armor gave a loud clank in protest.

“It’s unlike you to be so quiet,” she said sarcastically, catching me staring at her chest. I blushed.

“Morwen, I-”

“You should get used to calling me Lilith while we’re here, I can’t afford slip-ups,”

“I want to apologize for Riften,” I began, but she had already stood up from her seat. She made for the stairs, but not before she stopped awkwardly in front of me and pressed her lips to my forehead gently. The heat of her breath lingered on my hairline for just a moment, and I must have looked ill, because Lucien cleared his throat politely once Morwen’s footsteps disappeared upstairs.

“You alright, goodman?” his voice lilted as he inquired. I could only let out a quiet, harsh laugh.

“I’ll be alright,” Lucien just barely took that as an answer, before his chipper smile was back and he seemed to take my miserable silence for wanting conversation.

“The gala isn’t until tomorrow evening, why don’t you get out, see the city a bit?” he offered. I admit, it did sound tempting. I spotted a handful of lively taverns on the way up to the Spire. Besides, the stuffy air in this place was maddening. I wouldn’t torture myself further by sulking around Morwen and Lucien for more than I had to. I shrugged, avoiding his eyes.

“You’re really quite upset about this, aren’t you?” Lucien’s voice was patient but confident. It was the voice of a nobleman, not a filthy vagrant like me. My eyes fell slightly.

“We don’t know each other,” I growled slightly, fiddling with a strap on my knee that kept my greave in place. He wasn’t trying to be unkind, but I felt defensive as he prodded.

“Ah, but she knows you,” he said sagely, giving his chin a scratch. “I will have you know, this isn’t ideal for me either, Morw- er, Lilith, asked a favor of me. She’s my bestest, most wonderful friend, I wouldn’t even think of refusing. Had I known that you two were-”

“We’re not anything,” I snapped. He wasn’t taking no for an answer, giving me a sympathetic nod as he pieced it all together.

“She’s something to you, though?” I grumbled in response to this, and a light went off behind Lucien’s deep blue eyes. “Ah… she doesn’t know.”

“I’d imagine she’s not had time to care,” I snarled. “She’s too busy curled up in your bed to bother with a nobody like me. This was a mistake-” Lucien only interrupted with a bright song of a laugh.

“Me, and Lady Morwen Nox? Are you mad?” he larked, throwing his golden waves back with a graceful toss. “My my, that is quite the riot, I’ll have to remember to tell my mother about that one.”  
I wasn’t following, instead I felt angry at not being in on whatever joke he was enjoying. I stood to leave, before Lucien caught his breath.

“I’m afraid you’re sorely mistaken, goodman. You see, Morwen isn’t exactly the kind of company I like to keep, even if I had the time between my research and galumphing all over the province for her all her scheming and treasure hunting. You’ve got it all tangled up inside that big head of yours.” I glared at him, feeling not relieved but even more ridiculous than I did when I had them figured for lovers. Lucien preferred men, because of course he did, and I grew jealous for no reason at all. I cursed myself for being so stupid as Lucien picked up his giggling again. He finally stopped only to pull a piece of parchment off of the writing desk next to the hearth, and scribbled something quickly upon it from the ready quill that clinked when he placed the feather back into the well.

“Here, I want you to go to this address here in the city. It’s a finer establishment than what you’re used to-” he shied slightly as I adjusted my shoulders angrily, insulted. “-I just feel it’ll be good for you to clear your head. Get your mind off her while she cools off from the whole, well, you know.” I nodded slowly, agreeing as I turned to leave the manor. I opened my mouth to speak, and Lucien put a finger up to shush me. “Don’t worry about a thing, goodman, I’ll let her know you’ve gone to fetch some more appropriate garb for the gala, which, I advise you do while you’re out.” I didn’t protest, I smelled like swamp and sweat and probably looked worse than I felt. “And, tell Fen I say hello!”

The late afternoon sun was bleeding into reds and purples as I stepped out of the manor and into the Spire’s grand courtyard. Lucien handed me a sack of gold, which I slipped into the pocket under my armor before glancing down again at the slip of paper he handed me. The Nixie and Knight at a street called The Third Quarter, which would put it a handful of city blocks away from the Spire. I set off, quickly rounding the gardens and noting several nobles and their entourages socializing in the evening heat. My annoyance with Lucien was short lived, and the fresh air filled with the scent of cherries and apricots drifting from the overhanging trees made a stress dissolve from my shoulders. Solitude was beautiful if you knew nothing about it, and I was starting to get the urge to drink or fuck until I knew nothing. Morwen’s tantalizing cleavage and sultry glares were enough to make me feel like I was going mad, and I’ll spend Maven’s gold on a night that’ll make me forget how much I wanted to feel her skin against mine. The heat between her legs soaking us both, her lips finding mine amidst a blur of panting and cries of pleasure. A dragon breathing fire underneath me as I buried myself within her depths. I was so lost in thought that I nearly bowled into a gaggle of young ladies in fine tunics and matching cloaks, giggling to themselves as they purposefully tried to brush up against me. My arousal stirred.

The Nixie and Knight was a club that dominated an entire facet in between two alleyways. It sported a painted sign depicting a faerie creature in delicate blues sitting on the lap of a helmed knight rather suggestively. There were no open windows, all of them heavily curtained all the way up to the roof. From inside, the sounds of music and laughter drifted out of the heavy oaken door that lent no clues as to what I would find inside. I tried to pull it open, only to find it locked, so I banged the knocker three times to which a panel slid open at about my chest. I ducked to see two unmistakably Elven eyes peering back out at me, and they narrowed as they studied me up and down.

“Who are you?” an accented voice asked, Bosmer if I wasn’t mistaken. The voice was small but alluring, and the eyes bore a smear of some glittering powder. I cleared my throat.

“I was given the address by Lord Flavius,” I hadn’t answered their question, but a lock clicked all the same. The door swung open slowly to reveal a tiled foyer about the size of a water closet. At the door was a small Wood Elf dressed in a gauzy robe of a twinkly blue, small beads at the shoulders and trim glittering in the late afternoon light from outside. Their chest was flat, their hips wide and seducing, and their face was thin and angled. Beautiful blue and green eyes looked up at me from about a head and a half below my own, and I smiled meekly as the elf scrunched their nose up at my armor and shortsword. I left my own blade behind in Riften to prevent any more Thalmor-related incidences.

“You’re to leave your weapons and armor at the check, friend of Flavius,” they cooed, beckoning me further inside. The interior was decorated with greenery and floating orbs of light, and notably lacked the usual hallway furniture and paintings that many noble homes tend to have. Instead, statues of mythical and magical beings stood stalwart in each corner of the room, a Minotaur and a Wispmother in view, and two merfolk behind me. Two hallways stretched to my left and right, their doorways covered with sheer curtains. I stripped down to my gambeson, stacking my armor onto the counter right next to the door. I placed my sword down as well, and rolled my eyes when the Bosmer raised a thin brow to tell me they had spotted the knife in my boot. I reluctantly handed it over and began unlacing my gambeson, and the elf circled around the counter to help. I shrugged them off, and they gave me a look.

“You’re a tough one, aren’t you?” they lilted, Valenwood accent as crisp as day as they gave me my space. The gambeson slipped over my shoulders and I was left in just a tunic and trousers, feeling rather naked without any steel wrapped around my form. Satisfied, they lead me through the curtains to the right from the door, and we walked down a quiet hall away from the noise of conversation and revelry. When the hallway opened up, we were in a considerably larger room made of near-white stone, and lit with the same glowing orbs of light that now sat almost ironically in the chandelier’s settings as it hung low from a vaulted ceiling. It reminded me of Morwen’s apartments, and I wondered if this is where she had gotten the idea. The windows here weren’t curtained, but were glazed like stained glass in all sorts of blue and purple tones. They rose high on the walls like a cathedral, and I saw other similarities to Tamriel’s many churches as I spotted the altar up at the other end of the room, sitting high on a sort of raised platform made of marble. The statue atop it was that of a completely nude woman, hands raised in reverence and within them holding a lily flower. Dibella. On the wall to the left, there were several more curtained entrances, and behind me, a double-wide archway revealed a stone desk that was littered with scales and banking weights, as well as stacks of parchment. More stained glass lined the office behind its low stone bookshelves and tables. The Bosmer cleared their throat, bringing my attention back down to them.

“I’m to ensure you’re washed and dressed, and then you may explore the club at your leisure, my lord.”

“I’m no lord,” I assured them, but they didn’t seem to care. They lead me into the first archway on the left wall, and the smell of perfumes and steam met my nostrils as the narrow hall turned into a circular stone room with a similarly vaulted ceiling as the atrium. Windows made of colored glass and an octagonal bath with crystal-clear water made up most of the room, but there was a dressing corner and a vanity set out as well. I had just begun to ponder if the money Lucien gave me was enough to afford this before I felt the elf’s dainty hands begin to creep under my tunic and pull at the laces of my trousers. I jumped back.

“Oi, I can do it,” I barked as I cupped my groin modestly. The elf’s mischievous mouth was drawn into a grin as they closed the gap between our two bodies, hips wantonly drifting from side to side.

“I can do it for you, my lord,” they whispered, trying to move my hands free as my manhood disagreed with my protests. They were handsome for an elf, sultry and oozing interest as all courtesans do. I understood what kind of establishment I had been sent to.

“I’ll bathe myself, thank you,” I said tersely, and they shrugged and drifted over to the dressing space. I stripped my sweaty tunic and pants off, and kicked my leather boots to the side before standing awkward and naked in front of the strange attendant. They gathered their dress in hand, revealing slender, olive legs emblazoned with tattoos, and their feet were bare and delicate as they drifted over to a giant chain mounted into the wall. With a creaking pull, water began to flow from a large stone tap on the wall, bellowing down and forwards like a waterfall into the bath below it. The water stirred, and I climbed in. The heat immediately started siphoning the dirt from my skin, and I turned to see the elf offering a platter of oils. One smelled like herbs and citrus, and reminded me of Morwen, so I selected it silently. The elf nodded and as it was added to the rippling water, I relaxed into the bubbles and felt the ache of travelling dissolve from my muscles. The elf now poured water with a silver shell onto my hair as I sat on a stone bench at the side of the bath, and insisted on soaping and scrubbing my scalp until it tingled. Nothing but the collision of water from the tap and the gentling splashing of water from my hair echoed around the room, and the last inklings of sunset leaked in through the window, bathing the walls in a diluted gold light. After a slow hour of enjoying the young elf’s silent washing of my nails and brushing of my hair, I rinsed the bubbles from my skin and made to rise out of the water. To my surprise, the elf reached low into the water from their spot at the lip of the pool and slowly began to fondle my cock, to which it didn’t respond despite the expert and gentle strokes of their fingers.

“Do I not please you, my lord?” they asked softly, releasing the soft grip on my rather limp manhood.

“Uh,” I started, not wanting to upset them. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind, is all,” I didn’t elaborate, and the courtesan shrugged their narrow shoulders seemingly unbothered by my rejecting them.

“Is it women you like? Or men?” they offered a large cotton towel as I stood, patting my skin dry without asking as I let them. I was surprised when I didn’t know how to answer, only following them silently to the dresser and long mirror where a few sets of garb were set out for me. I looked at the elf, whose fine face did not frown or sulk at my buffing of their advances. They only blinked, taming a reddish brown lock of hair back into their low braid. The low cut of their dress, revealing more subtly-tattooed skin, would have been enough for me to lead their hips onto my cock and have my way, but I felt no desire now. Perhaps too many thoughts swimming in my head after enough time to think them.

“Does the lord wish to dress himself as well?” they gestured to the neatly folded outfits laid out for me. Each was a different tone of grey or blue, and I selected the darkest grey pile with near-black trousers. The elf nodded and cleared the others away, and I glanced at myself in the long mirror as they fussed with unfolding the garments for me. I was broader now, and my skin darker from months in the sun. My muscles were mountains on my shoulders and arms, and my abdomen was now full and strong instead of concave and starving. My legs were nearly as thick as trees, and calves just as powerful. Scars gilded my skin in streaks of pearl or pink, and I stroked the one on my shoulder gently before the elf offered me the fresh tunic to put on, followed by the trousers. The tunic sat fitted to me, with a trimmed keyhole neckline that revealed my large chest and the hair that grew upon it. My hair fell just past my shoulders in the deep brown that the flesh mage had given me. My face was naked without my tattoo, and my eyes foreign without the angry red within them. The trousers were soft and fitted as well, and a pair of leather shoes replaced my boots as the Bosmer gathered my clothing in her arms and made for the doorway.

“Thank you,” I said, words echoing through the now silent bath.

“My pleasure, friend of Flavius,” they said quietly, before disappearing through to the hallway. I took my time inspecting my garb and adjusting my hair, before heading back into the atrium and then down the hallway towards the foyer. The Bosmer was nowhere to be seen, and I continued through to the archway on the left side of the entrance and down another short hallway. As I reached the end of it, the space opened up much like the other wing, into a large cathedral-like space that was covered in cushioned furniture upholstered in blues and greens, plush rugs, beautiful ferns in rich greens that sat in low pots, and many patrons dressed in similar greys and blues as I was, but some completely naked and writhing together in pleasure, thrusting or bouncing on top of their partners and exploring each others bodies with greedy hands. Serving staff drifted gracefully around the space as they dodged lovers intertwined on the marble floors, offering goblets of wine and platters of fare, and the sounds of conversation and laughter I had heard from outside was now mingling with the sighs and moans of pure pleasure. Giggling courtesans of all backgrounds and genders draped themselves on chaises and plump floor pillows, many reaching out to graze my arms or legs. At the back of the room was a sort of mezzanine with stairs leading up it, and underneath it was a bar that stretched the width of the room. The light was low and the glittering magic cast a stunning atmosphere on the scene. It was like a painting, and I weaved my way through it to the counter, where a Dunmer greeted me with a dastardly smile as he wiped a mug down with a cloth.

“What can I get you, sera?” he looked me up and down, and squinted slightly. “I’ve never seen you here before, or else I’d know your usual. You’ll have these unfortunate ponces wrapped around your cock in no time,”

“Something strong,” I stated, throwing a handful of septims on the counter. The dark elf shook his head.

“Your coin doesn’t go to me, Fen’thais says the first visit is free. Though by the smell of you, I should remind you a mercenary’s salary doesn’t get you far in here,” a very loud moan from a patron startled me slightly as I slid onto a barstool and accepted the tankard that the barkeep set out for me. I took a sip and felt my whole face pucker at its proof.

“Bloody hell, what is that?” I coughed as I wiped my lips of it.

“Sujamma, and a bloody good one at that. Don’t spit it up, the cleaning boy’s off mopping up one of the private rooms and I’d rather not do it myself,” the Dunmer smirked as I tried another taste. It was like liquid lightning, and was rather enjoyable once you got past the initial grainy texture.

“Who’s Fen’thais, then?” I asked after a few moments. I rounded my shoulders to buff the advances of a pretty blonde courtesan with small, bouncing tits and hipbones as sharp as knives as is the fashion in the Imperial City. The barman lifted a sparse brow and set to work wiping down the dark wood countertop. He took a moment to respond, before nodding up towards the balcony overhead.

“I’m sure he’ll come find you if he feels you have need of him, he’s the owner of the Nixie, and only sees clients if he feels like it.”

I drank until I felt the familiar warmth in my gut and the buzz in between my ears. I made a few attempts to enjoy the company of the women here, but nothing seemed to bring me any arousal as the late evening turned into night. The Nixie showed no signs of slowing though, as patrons in grey and blue silks and cottons and velvets drifted in, taking their pleasure or watching others. A tap on my shoulder signalled a new act, and I turned to see the Bosmer that had bathed me before now giving me a beckoning hand as they floated towards the stairs. I gripped both banisters as we ascended up to the balcony level of the room, and sat down as I was instructed to on a velvety chaise that looked out on the floor below. The mezzanine was lit by a single, small brazier in the corner, and a set of double doors sat against the wall. The furniture littered around matched the ones below, but no one else was here but me. I watched out of boredom if not curiosity as the Nixie’s guests below enjoyed the sins of each other, men sinking their cocks into beautiful women and fucking them until they shuddered and screamed. Women drawing wives away from their husbands and melting their lips together, tasting each others tongues and squeezing their breasts through their gowns. I looked away shyly as a courtier with soft, brown curls and a stylish, youthful mustache wrapped his lips around the manhood of an Imperial patron, who shook with pleasure as his wife wrapped her hands playfully around his wrinkled throat.

“Does this embarrass you, my lord?” a regal voice asked from behind me. I turned to face the most beautiful man I had ever seen. A High Elf, judging by his alabaster skin and flawless features, as well as his golden yellow eyes that glittered under manicured brows. His hair was long, nearly down to his waist in a loose braid, and was as if sunlight had been spun into silk. He donned an impossibly beautiful smile. I batted my eyelids for a moment, feeling as if I had been staring directly into the sunrise.

“Why do you people insist on calling me ‘lord’?” I grumbled, feeling more drunk now than I had been all night.

“You arrived in the city with the lady Nox, does that not make you a lord?” I stood and quickly turned, fully prepared for this man, who was at least half a head taller than I, to threaten or blackmail. Instead, he gracefully, extended a hand to me and chuckled.

“My name is Fen’thais. Don’t worry, you and I are the only ones who know. Well, besides Lord Flavius of course,”

“He says hello.”

“Delightful! I was hoping he’d visit but I admit, better circumstances make for a more relaxed session. Shall we?” Fen’thais gestured to the double doors, and I walked through them as they opened with a flick of his hand. The room at the end of a long, wide hallway was almost like something Morwen would own, but it was more lavish than anything else she had ever shown me. An intricately carved four-poster bed sat at the head of the rounded room, its white stone walls draped in heavy, sky blue curtains with thick, shining tassels hanging from the ends. The bedlinens were the same sky blue, the rugs an expertly-woven white damask pattern, and the furniture all in a delicate, unstained pine. To the right was a dressing room, and to the left was a private bath much like the one I was in earlier. A lounging space with low chairs and sofas in beautiful velvets sat in the center of the room, and on the table was wine and fruit laid out on a silver platter. It was absolutely beautiful, but I was unsure of the intentions of this equally beautiful Altmer.

“What’s this, then? A chat for not fucking your girls?” I poked, testing the temper of Fen’thais as he lead the way in sitting on one of the luxurious chairs. He popped an olive in his mouth, and took his time before he answered.

“In a way. I’d very much like to help you, Ser Kastav,” he said coolly, saying the last words with the slow, highborn drawl of a noble. Emphasizing the disguise I wore. He was dressed in a housecoat in a silvery blue, it draped over his lithe form and only hinted at the bare skin on his chest. The coat was trimmed in a short, white fur, and the sleeves hung loose around his wrists as he held his hand limply beside him, beckoning me closer with the other. I sat across from him, avoiding the food and wine though I was almost sure he wasn’t here to kill me. Perhaps to confirm or disprove this, he moved to sit closer to me, a whisper’s distance between us as he sipped from a silver goblet.

“And what is it, exactly, you think I need help with?” I whispered harshly, feeling something strange stir in my belly. Fen’thais’ gold eyes drifted along my form, sprawled out on a floor cushion and resting on my elbows. He smelled like flowers and wine, and I let his face come close to mine as he whispered back.

“Manners,” he breathed, before placing his slender hand on my cock through my trousers, surprised to find it had already roused and was straining against the laces. I groaned, barrelling past shame and surprise as I watched Fen’thais expertly undo the trousers and slip them out from underneath me. I pulled my tunic off and sat completely naked before him, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths as the elf wrapped his manicured hands around my cock. I was warmer than he, and he found his grip wasn’t large enough to reach both the base and the tip in a short stroke. His hand travelled up and down the shaft, pulling the soft skin over the ridge of the head, making my thighs tense up with pleasure.

“Oh, f- gods,” I moaned, flexing my hips to move with the rhythm of his hands. I was surprised when his soft, practised lips found my neck. Even more so when I enjoyed his teeth nibbling at the skin. He was pressed against me now, pleasuring me with his hands as I would do for myself. Was this so wrong to enjoy? I felt no love, but comfort regardless as he rubbed just the head of my cock gently, making me shiver. The tip of my shaft wept slightly with clear fluid as I felt only more and more pleasure mounting by Fen’thais’ hand.

“Does this please you, my lord?” he purred, golden eyes hungrily taking in the expression on my face. I groaned quietly, nodding before adjusting my position to lean back on my elbows.

Swiftly but gently he lowered his head, and I gasped in surprise as his mouth wrapped around the head. It was soft, and wet, and felt similar to the warmth of a woman as he gathered the length of it into his mouth with quick and pleasurable strokes, welcoming it down his throat even as his lips reached the base. I moaned loudly, lifting a hand to hold the elf’s fine hair from his face. A heat was rising in my groin, and I warned him gently through whispers of pleasure as I nearly bucked my hips to feel more of myself in his mouth. I closed my eyes as my release approached, feeling a growing burst of emotion in my chest as Morwen’s eyes swam into view. I loved her, I admitted, I wanted her. But I also enjoyed this. I felt a tingle at the head of my shaft as it began to weep again.

He freed my cock from his throat and pleasured me with his hand to release. The feeling was unbelievable, even the air kissing it felt heavenly as Fen’thais encouraged me to finish. His lips bit gently on my earlobe, and I began to pant as his stroking made my seed shoot out of the head and onto my stomach. I howled, pleasure gripping me in waves as my cock twitched and fell as he let go of it. I only had myself in hand for months, and the Altmer’s touch had summoned a surprising amount of fluid from my now softening manhood. He produced a cloth from a pocket and handed it to me to clean myself, before getting up and drifting over to the washbasin to clean his hands. I stayed where I was, heaving still after my release. Fen’thais stood over me, before offering his hand to help me rise to my feet. I dressed, and he watched in silence before clearing his throat.

“Now that that’s over with,” he re-secured the sash that held his robe around his waist. Haughty, warm eyes focused on me. “The Thalmor will try to eat you alive when you step into that gala. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen, shall we?”


	14. Gilded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan, Morwen, Lucien, and Inigo enter Elenwen's summer gala.

Kaidan and I locked eyes as he approached the manor just as we had left it for the cool evening breeze of Solitude’s upper class rung. He looked absolutely magnificent, bathed, his hair brushed, and he wore a stunning tunic of deep black linen, trimmed in silver and hints of purple. On his shoulders sat a single ceremonial steel pauldron, polished to a shine and detailed finely with an embossed pattern. It lay in scaled layers along his arm, and was strapped underneath the opposite one with a single length of leather. A simple silver amulet lay on his broad chest, and on his hip, a simple broadsword.

“My my,” I cooed, gathering the silks of my gown as the four of us reunited in the courtyard of Maven’s manor, “you look absolutely ravishing.” Kaidan blinked, especially so as Inigo and Lucien chipped in with compliments. His heavy brows raised slightly as his cheeks became flushed. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you all thought me an absolute barbarian before getting ponced up like this,” his tone suggested a true jest, but he looked to his boots shyly as I reached up to his broad chest to adjust the collar of his tunic. He smelled heavenly, not of sweat and old blood, but of lemons and herbs. My heart fluttered in its prison behind my ribs. My own gown was tailored perfectly to me, but like all encounters with Maven, it proved to be jabbing in all the wrong places despite the luxury. The bodice was fitted but still appropriate, a heavy silk kirtle with a low, stiff neckline that traveled across my chest and cinched to my shoulders in a rippling silver, holding my curves in place. My shoulders held a striking grey fur mantle, and matching dark silver buckles wrought like filigree decorated the front of the dress. A silver pendant was set just above my breasts, and bracelets and rings brought it together. 

I opted for my own leather boots underneath instead of the slippers Maven had commissioned, as there nothing worse than running for your life while barefoot. The sleeves were tight and fitted up until the wrist, which is where I slid a single knife I had Lucien enchant to be hopefully undetectable. Going into a den of skilled mages with my very limited knowledge of basic spells didn’t seem like an excellent backup plan. Naturally, Lucien’s formal tunic matched my own garb in color and metals. Inigo sported a rather loud vest of brocaded gold and a low cut, flowing blouse with wide sleeves in a matching cotton. We must have been quite a sight, killers gilded like trinkets given to expensive lovers. We started together towards the Golden Hall, from which the sounds of music and coin clinking in pockets already drifted. It usually acted as the Thalmor’s official embassy, but it was once a place of worship for the Nords who revered their god, Talos. He was Dragonborn, like me, and I wondered if he watched on tonight as I entered his halls.

The evening was warm and clear, and the city air carried the salt from the ocean up into my nostrils. The courtyard in the centre of the Spire was filled with guests milling about before heading into the gala, and the cobbled stone road was lined with manors and shops even finer than Maven’s. As we approached, I got a good look at the hall. I had only ever seen it in passing, its insides would be unfamiliar to me. I didn’t mention this to the other three, they were nervous enough as it was. The temple was built of slate grey stone and its face held an equal array of massive stone pillars, each carved intricately with Nordic tales. The subjects’ faces had been carved off, I noted as we walked a short path to the entrance. Lucien and I walked arm-in-arm, and his chatting was interrupted by two agents at the grand double doors of the hall.

“Invitations, please,” the first Altmer said tersely, as the second brought glowing hands to our persons to reveal any weapons or other contraband. I held my breath as the elf’s magic grazed my arms, and thankfully no clue to my weapon was revealed. Lucien had done fine work, as usual, and even know he graced the two agents with mindless chatter as I handed over a stack of paperwork. The Altmer frowned slightly.

“Does the cat have papers?” he snarled, giving Inigo a rather disgusted look. I had given the forged document to Inigo for consistency’s sake, and he produced them proudly from a pocket. The elf gave the papers a quick glance, before daintily placing it back in Inigo’s hands as my Khajiit friend beamed with razor-sharp teeth. I felt Kaidan tense behind me as the two agents moved aside to let us pass.

“Everything is in order. Welcome to the Embassy, Lord Flavius,” the elf nodded to Lucien. “Lady Blackbriar,” he gave a curt bow to me. The double doors opened by magic to us, and we glided as one into the foyer with Kaidan and Inigo in tow. 

“That was intense,” Lucien’s forehead beaded with sweat as the golden light from a large chandelier hit his face. The cathedral-like architecture had been transformed from its brutal Nordic roots to an ornate affair of large, intricate pillars and high, vaulted ceilings painted like the night sky. I avoided craning my neck to stare, but Kaidan and Inigo paid no mind to manners as they looked around in awe.

“This is incredible, my lady,” Kaidan breathed as he took in the foyer with a deep, wondrous stare. Underneath the disguise of a charming knight, I saw a hungry orphan whose eyes glittered full of gold as he was graced by the lavish decor of the Embassy’s vaulted atrium. In front of us was a grand staircase, and on either side and to the left and right were archways leading to different parts of the embassy. All but one to the top left was roped off, and so Lucien and I lead the way through the stone hallway and directly into the ballroom that was full to bursting with life and music. Even I was taken aback at the sheer size of the place; it stood as a large rectangle, raised on the sides and the main entertaining floor was sunken into the center of the room like a massive, empty bath, joined with the upper floor by large staircases. The impossibly high ceiling was supported by large, thick pillars carved into a scalloped shape, and upon them hung twenty foot long banners emblazoned with the sigil of the Aldmeri Dominion. The stone of the floors and ceilings was a light stone, and the drapery and carpets were all in gold and white. Guests of all races and agencies milled around in large groups, engrossed conversation and ridiculously expensive wine from golden goblets. Most seemed to be enjoying themselves, but I spotted a few gaggles of Nords and even a handful of Redguards keeping to themselves, eyeing the others suspiciously.

“Remember what I told you both,” I addressed Lucien and Inigo. They nodded, and Lucien even planted a convincing kiss on my cheek before slipping his arm out from mine. They each took separate directions into the fold, Lucien to socialize and talk up Maven’s political efforts in Riften, and Inigo to listen to the songbirds of Solitude whisper their secrets where it appears no one is listening. Kaidan stood behind me, his chest puffed and eyebrows furrowed as he adjusted to the sheer magnitude of the happenings around us. I breathed heavily into my upper chest, watching as he justified his actions up until this point as we stood awkwardly in front of the archway. He didn’t look at me, but instead, across the grand space to Lady Elenwen’s table at the head of the room. He couldn’t see her from here, surely, but he glared nonetheless.

“Would you like to walk with me, Ser Kastav?” I offered, gesturing towards the doors to the gardens at the other end of the room. The outdoor paths and hedges were suspended on a natural balcony of stone over Solitude’s bay, and I hoped to have a moment alone with him if only to give Maven a heart attack, or perhaps just feel him close.

“As you wish.”

He followed me, as weaving through crowds of people proved to be more difficult than I anticipated. Interest rippled through the courtiers as I glided as gracefully as I could among them, careful not to meet anyone’s eyes for too long. I recognized Jarls from Skyrim, but also characters who could only be distant leaders I had read about and heard stories of, but never met. A tanned Bosmer councilman in a golden circlet and handsome green tunic made of latched leather was chatting with a pair of Imperial women dressed in their finest gowns of heavy velvet. A handful of Nord men boasted to one another about their wives or mistresses or some other conquest. A gaggle of Altmer girls, no older than sixteen, giggled to each other as Kaidan passed them by. In between the intrigue and empty words, whispers followed.

“She looks like a Blackbriar…”

“I’ve never seen her at court before,”

“…She’s rather small for Nord-”

“Didn’t know Maven had a second daughter…”

I ignored this, and as I checked on Kaidan, he looked back at me with a face full of pure amusement, much like he did when he found out about my Thaneship. We managed to make it to the large archway leading out weaving gardens of the Embassy, and they were unsurprisingly much quieter than the revelry inside. A few guests milled about, but careful words would provide enough privacy. We wove through the tall hedges, bathed now in a silvery light from the two shining moons ahead, both nearly full in the mid-summer sky. Beautiful statues and small fountains made of marble littered about, and the bushes eventually gave way to a small alcove at the very end of the balcony. The bells of the East Empire Trading Company were silent below, and the port was still, no doubt a deliberate detail for the night’s festivities. I sat on the stone bench facing the path we had come from, and Kaidan joined me silently as I straightened my skirts.

“You should be careful,” I warned quietly before he spoke, “the hedges tend to be nosy here.” He understood, and carefully chose his words before clearing his throat.

“I hope the lady doesn’t think less of me,” he began politely. “I trust…your judgement.”

“I accept your apology, Ser, and I hope I did not appear unladylike.” We performed for an audience that didn’t make itself known. I felt positively alight as our bodies sat closer now than they had in weeks. 

“Not at all, it was me who was unkind,” his highborn accent was a tad boorish but it would fool anyone who didn’t live and breathe high society. Unfortunately, living and breathing high society approached through the narrow path from the gardens, and her lilt was even more unbearable.

“Lady Lilith Blackbriar, am I correct?” Elenwen addressed me directly. I stood to a shallow curtsy, and Kaidan followed my lead with a bow. I felt his rage shake his very core from where we stood.

“A pleasure, your grace,” I purred, politely resting my hands at my navel as we locked eyes from across the alcove.

“And who might this be? You’re quite the picture, my boy. Come closer, I would look at you.”

Kaidan reluctantly approached the Altmer as she studied him. I couldn’t blame her, his physique was breathtaking even from under a tunic that guarded most of his skin from the moonlight. Elenwen’s hawk-like eyes scanned every inch of him, from his shoulders to the tips of his boots. Her white-blond hair was pulled back into a harsh up-do, and the wrinkles on her face seemed to have been purposefully left uncharmed to anyone who would look upon her; a status symbol. You don’t get to be her without cutting throats, and intrigue was the name of her game. I stepped in to save him, putting on my most innocent smile as I slid in between Kaidan and the ambassadress.

“Ser Kastav is my mother’s favorite hire in Solitude, I’m afraid his contract has been bought for the next year. Perhaps at the start of court next season he will be tired of us yet,” I said playfully, extending a hand to give Kaidan a chance to retreat. Lady Elenwen leered at me, and then back to Kai, before shaking my hand curtly.

“Your fiance, the Flavius, has mentioned that your mother is making a bid for the Rift. I should like to discuss details before giving her my quiet and…unofficial support. Would you walk with me, Lady Blackbriar?”

“Of course, ambassadress, I’m honored to be graced with your company,” I shot a look back to Kaidan, who gave me a singular nod that encouraged me to go as Elenwen and I drifted into the path between high hedges. I marooned him in the gardens, his eyes glittering with rage and fear as I turned a corner, worlds between us once again.


	15. As You Wish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan and Morwen are separated during the gala by Thalmor Ambassadress Elenwen, who is beginning to suspect something is afoot. The pair share a dance as Lucien prepares a diversion. With top secret documents in hand, the Dragonborn and the hunter act quickly to con their way out of Elenwen's office after being caught red-handed.

My pulse was rapid as Morwen drew Elenwen away from the overlook in the embassy’s gardens. A sense of urgency overtook me. With the taste of adrenaline still in my mouth, I waited until their voices were distant and then gone, before quickly hurrying through the weaving paths of the garden and throwing myself back into the throngs of the party guests. A troupe of musicians kept them dancing and the wine flowed freely into goblets. The party was like nothing I had ever seen, a collection of vices that only the Thalmor would dare to host under one roof. It wasn’t lewd like the Nixie, but equally as sensual as battles of wit and power flitted about the ballroom like firework displays. Marriages were arranged, dynasties dismantled, and legends solidified at gatherings such as this. I wove through the crowd to find exactly who I was looking for; Inigo drew a crowd of at least six Imperials, definitely foreign-born by their strong southern accents. The Khajiit stunned them with a deck of cards in hand, making a show of shuffling them widely from palm to palm, and asking a lady in an emerald gown to draw the card from the top.

“Ah, the Knight of Three eludes you yet, my lady,” Inigo began slyly, before grazing the girl’s face gently with his off hand. If they were watching closely, the crowd would have seen his fingers curl and pull the Alouette card from the curve of his wrist. “What is this, hidden behind your lovely ears?” The girl squealed excitedly as he seemingly procured a card from thin air. I cleared my throat as I approached his side, not facing him directly.

“She’s been pulled away by Elenwen, she hasn’t had time to look yet,” I informed him. Inigo nodded sternly in between setting up for a new trick, his audience seemingly indifferent to my presence.

“I spotted a passage to the offices, it is behind the statue near the other end of the room. I unlocked it as soon as I found it. Look for the dossiers, they will be stamped with a black seal. Good luck, my friend.”

I set off at a reasonable stride, trying to politely ignore advances or introductions as I willed myself to become invisible. I was taller than many here, except for the High Elves littering the gala. I spotted the stone statue at the far corner of the room, across from the garden’s entrance. A handful of servants chatted in front of it, with silver platters empty of their accoutrements tucked under their slender arms. They wore uniforms of black and gold, and spotted me as soon as I approached.

“I’m sorry, ser, we’re waiting on the kitchens, may I point you to the banquet table for refreshments instead?” one Bosmer girl not even Morwen’s age offered as the other stepped back, bringing the platter in their hands in front of their body subtly. I probably looked frightening, a knight of Nord hair and eyes with a face full of rage. I was angry at the luxury of my surroundings while the lower classes starved due to the war, at being so near to Elenwen without unleashing a blade upon her, and I was angry that I let Morwen be dragged away from me in the ambassadress’ spindly clutches. I wasn’t angry because of the lack of refreshments.

“Er, no, thank you…” I said awkwardly, drifting away as quickly as I arrived, eyes flying around the room for a solution. I spotted Morwen on the lower floor of the ballroom, curtsying as Lucien offered a hand for her to take. A lively tune picked up from the small band that was set up on a raised platform next to a table bearing wine and ale, and I found a way through the crowd and down the stairs to blend into the onlookers that gathered. She was nightshade in a garden of roses. Her silvery lilac gown swung around her as Lucien led her in a graceful basse, their hands clasped together and movements fluid. The onlookers swooned and sighed as Lucien took Morwen by the waist, pulling her close as she stepped forward into his back step, and then vice versa. My cheeks burned hot, and I inched closer through the crowd only to find Elenwen’s razor sharp eyes nailed to me from across the dance floor. Their low dance charmed all but one, as the High Elf leaned to a well-dressed agent next to her, and whispered something to her through wrinkled, thin lips. The basse concluded, and Lucien glided towards another dance partner as tradition dictated, joining hands with an older looking Imperial woman. Morwen spotted me and extended her hand, the other holding her skirt aloft from her boots.

“Will you join me, good Ser?” she called over the newly renewed flute and harp, and I placed my hand in hers to accept.

“As you wish.”

I wasn’t completely lost, I had seen them practice before, and the movements were not unlike training with a longsword. My feet quickly picked up the rhythm, my muscles straining to keep a polite distance between our two bodies. We didn’t dare lean in, but I could feel her breath on my face, and the scent of her hair drifted up to me as she swung in a half circle with both of my hands in hers.

“Did you see the door behind the statue, near the banquet table?” I whispered as the music swelled. Morwen nodded, the illusion of Maven’s eyes twinkling and rippling under her long lashes. “I can’t figure out how to get to it without Elenwen seeing.”

“Leave it to Lucien, he’s going to ask the old hag about her dance card,” Morwen giggled, quickly swallowing her smile for a polite yet amused expression as we carried through the movement of the song. Stepping forward and then back to an upbeat melody, then side to side in the same fashion.

“You’re quite the dancer, Ser Kastav, have you been taking lessons behind my back?” Morwen purred quietly as I bowed and took her hands again right on queue. I thought back to my sleepless night with Fen’thais as he drilled me with etiquette and criticized my form while practicing a court dance not unsimilar to this one.

“As a matter of fact, I have,” I loosened my grip on her hand so she could spin and resume the final set of steps as the song began to conclude.

“So that’s where you were all night. You missed a good game of Bloody Knuckles, Inigo wiped the floor with poor Lucien.”

“What in Oblivion is Bloody Kn-” I began, but the final note drowned me out.

“Meet me by the door in a few moments,” she whispered, and I nodded. Drifting back into the crowd that the spectacle had drawn, I found my way up the stairs to reveal that the servants had abandoned their post by the door. Behind the statue’s decor of summer branches and flowers draped over its curves and details, the entrance was nearly invisible. A gaggle of young nobles dressed in the brilliant reds of Stros M’kai were chatting nearby, oblivious to us as Morwen and I reunited near the statue’s base. We watched as the music picked up once again and Lucien began a third dance, this time with Elenwen, who was nearly a head taller than him. We wasted no time, Morwen rounding the statue’s plinth and disappearing within a blink of an eye, and I followed as the door swung open to her invisible touch.

The door led into a hallway with low ceilings, and quickly fed into a small sitting room surrounded by doors. Morwen instinctively picked one after reappearing, and I followed briskly as she lead me down another hall and around a corner. Elenwen’s name was embossed on a silver plaque on the only door at the end of this particular hallway, and we opened it to reveal the oval floorplan of her office. The back wall was covered in windows that all looked out into the bay below, and the rest of the walls were lined with bookshelves and cabinets stuffed neatly with books, rolls and stacks of parchment, with the occasion trinket here and there. There was no light besides that which drifted from the window, and Morwen instinctively conjured a small, candle-sized flame in her palm to shed light on the desk.

“What are we looking for?” I asked as she started to flip through a pile of papers on the stately desk in the center of the room.

“Anything with a black and gold seal on it, that would be the official correspondences from the Dominion. They’ve got to know something about this dragon business, and I intend to find out what it is. Look for prison registries as well, I’m getting rather bored of you and figured I’d go prison shopping for another dashing swordsman,” I let out a belly laugh at her teasing, and she gave me a wicked grin in return. We scoured the office for a handful of minutes, before she sprung a lock on the lowest drawer of the desk with the stalk of a quill and pulled out a handful of leather dossiers. At the same time, I found an open letter with a thick seal at the lip detailing prisoner movements from Markarth flattened under a ledger of business expenses.

“Kai, you’ll want to see this,” her voice had dropped all hints of good spirits as she whipped through the pages of the third dossier in her hand. “Brynjar’s name is written here.”

“Let me see that!” I rounded the desk as she continued reading, craning over her shoulder to try and make out the words in light from the dim magefire. Both of our heads snapped up as we heard the heavy door down the hallway swing open, and a man’s voice call something down it. I started for the door, making to pull the shortsword from its sheath as crisp footsteps made their way up the hall.

“Don’t be an idiot!” Morwen hissed, grabbing me by the sword belt and pulling me back around the desk, before hopping up onto the surface and hiking her skirts up over her knees. The magefire had disappeared from her hand, but in the moonlight cast through the bay windows, I saw her quickly scramble with the filigree clasp on the front of her dress, and within a second, her breasts spilled out from the bodice. My arousal stirred almost immediately, and she yanked me closer to stand between her open legs.

“Kiss me, and mean it, for fuck’s sake!”

As you wish.

I pushed my body into hers, my mouth colliding with her own as she threw her arms around my neck. I leaned into her, not daring at first to touch her bare skin, but she yanked my hands to her thighs and I obliged, letting my palms glide against her legs until I reached the lace of her smallclothes. I felt a silk ribbon tied into a small bow right at her hips, and it took every ounce of strength I possessed not to undo it. I know it wasn’t me that caused the sound that came next; the moan she let out from in between our lips was theatrical and shamelessly loud like that of a whore with no acting skills. She bit my lip, seemingly involuntarily as I accidentally brushed my cock against the inside of her thigh.

“Oh, fair Ser, I want you to ravish me!” she screamed dramatically over her shoulder just as the door swung open violently to reveal one Thalmor agent dressed in party attire, and another in the Embassy’s preferred uniform - a black and gold mage’s robe. He must have heard us from another office when we first came in. They stood in the doorway and squinted as, by magic, the chandelier came to life and bathed the wanton scene in candlelight. Morwen feigned modesty, quickly stirring around to cover her breasts, her expression a horrified gasp. I followed along, feigning shame at being caught with another’s promised. I acted quickly.

“You said that they wouldn’t catch us, you fooled me!” I bellowed, pointing an accusatory finger at Morwen’s rather convincing face. As I stepped away from the desk and from her, she slipped the dossiers into my hand. The Knight of Three was in my possession, now to successfully hide it in my sleeve.

“You were going to sully my honor! Some knight you are! My mother will have your head!” Morwen played along, fake tears now sliding down her face as she barely held her breasts still whilst she screamed up at me.

“This whore nearly tricked me into having her here while her betrothed awaits her outside, can you believe that?” I whipped around to the two Thalmor standing positively aghast in the doorway. 

“What is the meaning of this!? You two aren’t supposed to be back here at all, this area is off limits!” the uniformed Elf screeched. Despite the anger on their faces, they both moved out of the way of the door as I continued to berate Morwen from across the room. The dossiers were hidden behind my back, and I slid halfway into the hall before applying the finishing touches.

“I’ll ensure the entire court knows of your desperation, how you willingly splayed your legs for m-”

“That’s enough!” The other High Elf shouted over me. “Both of you, return to the festivities or I’ll have you both thrown out. Do I make myself clear?” I grumbled an apology before whipping up the hallway without Morwen. I heard her footsteps behind me though as she began laying apologies onto the two elves thick enough to suffocate. Her charm wasn’t wasted, and I tucked the leather dossiers and the letter safely into the quilted padding of my pauldron as soon as I was out of sight. The festivities carried on as we rejoined them, unaware of the magnitude of a heist we had just pulled off. My legs were like jello as they carried me to meet up with Inigo and Lucien, who were sitting together on a sofa away from the dance floor. Lucien’s hair was a disaster, and Inigo sat beside him patting his shoulder softly.

“What happened to you two?” Lucien asked venomously as Morwen squeezed her breasts together to adjust their sit.

“Whoa, what happened to you?” I chortled, watching as his manicured brows furrowed in anger.

“Lady Elenwen grabbed Mr. Lucien’s bottom,” Inigo answered my question solemnly. Morwen snorted.

“She what?”

“She grabbed my bottom!” Lucien cried, tears swimming in his eyes, “in front of everybody!” Inigo patted his shoulder a little more vigorously, and Morwen let loose a cackle.

“We got what we came for, you were very brave,” she purred through a grin, before straightening her posture and starting towards the exit. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”


	16. The Crossing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After fleeing Solitude, Kaidan, Morwen, Inigo, and Lucien head for the Reach together, hoping to gain safe passage from the mounting Forsworn presence in Morwen's homeland. The Thalmor are very likely hot on the party's tail. Kaidan is pent up, as usual. Morwen is - at the very least - annoyed, as usual. Lucien regrets giving Morwen the idea to head towards the Reach in the first place. Inigo is naked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I included some extremely headcanon-y Reachspeak in this chapter. It's based on a few online resources, but was chosen to flow rather than to translate directly. The Imperial Library and some basic Irish are the basis for the Reachspeak, I just figured I'd mention it just in case someone gets curious. Please don't like, bend over backwards trying to translate it because it won't make a huge amount of sense, and I hope you enjoy as always!

“Now what?” Lucien pouted. The four of us rode from Solitude in the dead of night after the gala, and the sky was just starting to shift to a warm purple. Dawn was approaching, and ahead, a Thalmor blockade sat a league ahead of us, between Morwen and the road through Morthal.

“We could try and go around, they may not notice us so long as we stick to the shallow waters,” Inigo offered, wheeling Artax around to face us. Morwen’s face, now her own as her disguise melted away, was contorted into a familiar frown. Her icy eyes twinkled in the fading starlight, and I could already guess the path ahead without seeing it.

“They’ll have mages in the swamps as well, besides, the horses will slow us down through the water if they make it at all. We’ll have to turn back,” she clicked her tongue as she weighed her options, knowing that this meant possibly trapping the four of us in between two squads of Justiciars. Elenwen must have found out about the missing documents once our close call in her office was reported. She didn’t waste any time dispatching her men to hunt us down.

“We’ll head back towards the Reach, at least there the guards will be too preoccupied with the locals to stop us traveling through. We’ll have to take the mountain pass back through to Riften, but-”

“Hang on,” Lucien cut in, “aren’t you a wanted woman? Don’t you think they’ll come looking for you once they hear of four strange travelers passing through their hold?”

“They’re expecting a starving, savage Forsworn girl, not a Thane and her companions. If we keep our heads down-”

“But they could recognize you,” Lucien pressed, and anger started to bubble under Morwen’s calm demeanor, “especially with troops about because of the Stormcloaks’ movements in the Reach. You know what I’m going to say, Morwen.”

“I do not know,” Inigo added, raising his hand shyly. I nodded in agreement.

“What’s this about, Dragonborn?” I eyed her from atop my own mount, an unfamiliar, mousy-grey draft who pawed at the ground and snorted in anticipation. Morwen sighed, and adjusted in her saddle.

“Madanach,” she snarled, before giving her filly a light kick around the belly and starting back down the path we had just came from. The rest of us followed, pulling our hoods over our heads and starting at a lope through the tall trees of West Hjaalmarch.

The Reach came into view within a few hours. It’s craggy peaks and deep valleys were home to me once, and I knew Morwen felt the same despite the circumstances. A foggy morning greeted us as we reached Karthwasten, a small village shadowed by the teeth of the Druadach Mountains. Lucien fell back as Morwen kept pace a few lengths ahead, raven hair flying loose and wild behind her.

“Who is Madanach?” I asked finally as Lucien and I matched pace, with Inigo just behind us. The scholar hesitated for a moment, before launching into his explanation as quietly as he could.

“Morwen’s father and mother were following his orders that he had smuggled out of Cidna Mine in Markarth when she was betrothed to a Briarheart, they’re sort of like…half-undead lords. Nasty business,” Lucien shook his head, “They had her whipped when she refused to participate in some sort of ritual for arranged marriages that confirms consent between the two parties. It’s mostly for the families, not the betrothed themselves as far as I understand, but-”

“Get to the point,” I gritted my teeth, keeping a wary eye on the distance between Morwen and our conversation.

“Madanach was known as the King in Rags, since Ulfric’s occupation of Markarth some thirty years ago when he had the man imprisoned. He’s responsible for the Forsworn uprisings in the area, and for renewing the prevalence of Daedric worship within the Blooded Twelve, that is to say, all of the important families in the Forsworn’s political structure.

“It’s really quite fascinating, a microcosm of an entire independent nation and its pol-”

“So that’s why we have to go see him because he’s bossy? Or is there something important you’re getting to?”

“I would also like to hear the important part,” Inigo chimed in.

“Well, Morwen helped Madanach escape not long before I left for Solstheim. She was thrown into Cidna Mine after they arrested her while we were heading to an absolutely massive Dwarven ruin near Reachwind, they were said to employ the most amazing t-”

“Lucien!” Inigo and I scolded in unison, and the rather disparaged-looking Lucien finished his thought.

“Well, that’s why she has such a large bounty on her head, and Madanach has all but managed to take the entire Reach for himself. She very well helped him do it. The city has yet to fall, but with the way that the war is going, Ulfric will weaken it within the month and the Forsworn are bound to blindside him and capture it before he can.”

“We’re going to Madanach because Morwen can’t pass through here without paying tribute,” I concluded, rubbing my chin thoughtfully as the consequences became clear. “If he finds out that she entered his land without acknowledging his sovereignty…”

“The Blooded Twelve turns into the Blooded Eleven,” Inigo said sagely. Just in time, as well, as we caught up with Morwen who had stopped just before a low stone bridge. Just below it were the meandering waters of the Deepfolk, a river that cut through the mountains from High Rock.

“If you three are done jabbering about me behind my back, it’s time to cut up the river and make camp at the crossing. I can’t guarantee we’ll have any time to rest once we arrive at Bard’s Leap, and I for one, am fucking exhausted,” Morwen’s tone was even but it didn’t take a psychic to hear the hurt in her voice. I struggled to produce an apology as she guided her mount to the right and directly into the shallow river. The spring’s melts had concluded for the year, so the waters were calm and the horses had no issue splashing onto the bank and up the incline towards Deepfolk Crossing. On the other side of the border, High Rock’s craggy mountain ranges gives way to just North of Orsinium, and then Kambria, and eventually Daggerfall. The lush shores of High Rock were a stone’s toss away, and its fragmented chaos of kingdoms would be a perfect escape.

As we rode up the steep mountain path, I mused about crossing through the mountains with Morwen, leaving her bounties and responsibilities here in Skyrim behind. We would ride until we reached High Rock’s capital city, a landscape she would wear well, with its complex but meaningless politics, hot summers and mild winters. Daggerfall’s silk across her slender shoulders, Ilessen gold around her neck, In my minds eye, I imagined the two of us settled in a home on the sea. No daggers at our backs or Thalmor on our heels. I wondered if she’d ever bother to settle, or if she planned on growing old at all. As I studied her from behind, the curves of her hips and strength of her thighs, the sweetness of her nose as it sloped to a button-like tip, the waterfall of hair that moved like magic, I fell prey to daydreams. The glittering roofs of two open-walled Dwemer towers and the rushing of a small waterfall that ran between them shook me from my thoughts.

Deepfolk Crossing was little more than an old Dwarven bridge to mark the border between provinces, but in the mid-morning sun, its marble steps and scalloped copper roof gleamed a fine palace. We were quick to set up camp, Morwen set out bedrolls and got a fire going on the stone floor under one of the structures, Inigo quickly hunted down a fistful of rabbits from the nearby plateau further up the mountainside, Lucien worked on setting up runes upon the dirt at all entrances to the Crossing, and I was left to secure and tend to the horses. Artax and the stallion I had rode from Solitude’s stables shared the same warm grey coat, and Morwen’s mare, whom she called Igni, was a beautiful palomino with a mane that was white as cream. The horse that Lucien rode, quaintly named Clive, was a similar palomino color, but with icy blue eyes instead of warm, brown ones. He put me slightly on edge, and didn’t seem to enjoy being brushed by me as much as the others did. I fetched them bundles of grass from the river bank, and relieved them of their saddles while leaving their bridles on to lash them to a fallen log nearby. Once I was done, Morwen pulled out spare clothing and a bar of soap from a saddlebag, and shoved the pile into my hands.

“You’ll be skinned alive smelling like expensive perfume, we should wash up before heading to Bard’s Leap,” she winked, before pulling out her own change of clothes and making towards the river. Before fleeing Solitude, she stripped her expensive gown off and had been riding in a pair of men’s breeches and a cotton shift, with a cloak wrapped around her for most of the journey. The slight curl in her nose told me she wasn’t very comfortable, and she didn’t waste any time stripping this ensemble off either. The shift flew off her body as she carefully stepped down into the water. The jet black tattoo on her spine writhing and shifting as she leaned down to step out of the trousers, and just like that, her naked body was in front of me without shame or shyness. She wasn’t facing me, or she might have poked fun at the shock on my face as I hungrily took in her form. Her skin was as tanned and rich on her face as it was all over, and a life of adventuring kept her muscles taut and her arse round. Her legs, while slender and long, were sturdy and rippling as she inched further into the water. The spectacle was quickly interrupted by a stark naked Inigo running headlong into the creek, causing cold water to splash onto us.

“Oi!” I shouted, but Inigo was already diving head first into the murky water, emerging sopping wet only to glide into a backstroke like he hadn’t just soaked us both, whistling all the way.

“Come on in, my friend, the water is freezing, and not enjoyable at all!” the Khajiit called as Lucien approached, pantsless but still modestly dressed in his undertunic over the important bits.

“Morwen!” he whined, daintily stepping into the river with careful bare feet. “Why can’t I just run a marathon and smell like sweat instead?”

“Because, my dear Lucien, you sweat like a courtier, not an athlete. Madanach will sooner sweeten his tea with you by dunking you in than let you roam his kingdom smelling like an expensive dandelion,” Morwen said through giggles, and Inigo laughed sharply as he splashed Lucien with an errant kick of his foot. She sunk into the water, weight resting on her elbows and bare legs stretched out in front of her, before she turned to me. I tried not to stare as her nipples perked up in the breeze.

“If you’re not coming in now, be a dear and pass me the soap,” she smiled up at me, and I obliged before turning towards the camp. My cock strained again at my trousers for what was probably the millionth time since this woman saw fit to torture me, and I longed to have just a few moments alone to deal with the ache.

“Why doesn’t he have to bathe?” Lucien moaned, finally beginning to wash himself as Morwen broke off a chunk of soap for him.

“He’s got something to brood about first,” Morwen called, more to tease me than answer the question. I stripped my tunic off as I reached the camp, and headed further up the hill to the seclusion of a small plateau that looked out over the valley below. The breeze on my scars, now all my own as the mage’s illusions had finally worn off, felt like ice being drawn across my skin. Despite it being almost mid-summer, Skyrim was as cold and unfeeling as always. I found a bit of shelter from the exposed air under a gnarled oak tree, and leaned up against its weathered bark as I deftly undid my laces and took my cock in hand. The Dragonborn and her lithe figure were all I could think about, the feeling of her dainty smallclothes melting off at my touch causing my cock to throb and my heart rate to quicken. I made quick work of my needs, a minute or so of quick strokes before I had release onto the dirt below, breathing heavily and sweating at my temples. I returned to the camp after a bit of time to think, to find the three of them already gathered around the fire, Lucien and Inigo both drifting off to sleep. Morwen laid, now dressed, with her back facing me. I couldn’t be sure she was sleeping, but I tried my best to be silent as I snatched the soap from the stone ledge of the tower, before heading down to the river.

It wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be, and as the soap lathered it revealed a pleasant yet heavy scent of goatsmilk that washed away the salty air of Solitude from my bare skin. I scrubbed my hair, my face, even my groin in an effort to become at least a little more presentable after hours of hard riding. To my surprise, I looked up towards the bridge to see her leaning over it, not even remotely pressed that I had just caught her staring at my naked body.

“I thought you’d be asleep, your grace!” I called up to her. She hopped over the side and onto the loose riverbank with bare feet, and I instinctively turned my back to her, mainly to hide my manhood making the second appearance of the day.

“I figured you’d actually bathe if you were alone,” she said smugly, crossing her arms over a simple, dark brown tunic, trimmed in black and open wide at the shoulders. Her waist was cinched by a wide leather belt, and her favored daggers sat on either hip, wicked things of curved damask steel. She came within a few feet of me before stopping, making a show to look me up and down before I protested.

“Will I ever have a moment of peace with you around, Dragonborn?” I teased, still turned away from her slightly and leaning down to rinse the rest of the suds from my body. Her retort was nearly out of her mouth when the sound of hooves interrupted. We looked up towards a plateau to the South, across the river and down a bit, to catch the eyes of three Forsworn, mounted on warhorses decorated in drapings of fur and bones. The sun was at our backs, and its light bathed their muscled forms; the picture of Hircine Himself. They rode bareback, and dressed much like their mounts in fur and leather fashioned into clothing. All three of them were tattooed on the face and arms, and only one was tattooed on every visible bit of skin. Morwen stepped back an inch, only to step forward into the river as the one in the center called forward to us.

“Seasann tua’n ar Bailach cai Madenach. Wair tuoth?” the Reachman spoke in a language I didn’t understand. Morwen gave me a sideways glance, shaking her head slightly as I made to back up, so I could do nothing but stand stark naked in front of these strangers.

“Gia’n Morwena cai Nox, Umatre nn Alrach cai Brennach. Maoth ar Haafingar, con wia rondchach,” she gestured to me, and then to the camp under the tower’s roof. Lucien and Inigo were peering over the stone rail of the tower, heads just barely visible.

“Brennachi estent mordueym,” the rider to the left added, and the three Forsworn whispered among themselves, before the middle one turned back to us and continued. “Estewi Druastori, tua’n uerderu y Druasynach!”

Morwen furrowed her brows, before throwing a hand towards the camp again.

“Aue, ma scith nn retheru cai Druasynach, awi?”

“Lottchach?” the rider asked, venom in his tone.

“Bradachi, spakti-na Druagatch,” Morwen shot back, equally as vitriolic. The rider considered this for a moment, before nodding and calling back one more time.

“Aue, Morwena cai Brennach,” the riders departed together, wheeling their mounts around and starting down the mountain on the other side. I silently dried myself off, but not before Morwen and I caught each others’ eyes for a split second. Her face wasn’t fearful, but she certainly wasn’t pleased either. Neither was I.

Morwen left me to dress, and I approached the camp as Inigo and Lucien sat silently, watching Morwen revive the fire. The embers pulsed and heaved, and eventually a blaze was eating away at the logs again.

“What in the Nine fucking Divines was that about?” I barked, drying my hair on my dirty tunic before tossing it aside.

“They asked who we were, I answered, they said my family was dead, then agreed that I am obviously not dead, they informed me I’d have to jump off of Bard’s Leap to prove it, I said fine, but we’ll have to rest first, they asked if you were Nords, I said no, you’re friends of mine, and you don’t know Reachspeak, and we came to an understanding. You following?” Lucien had whipped out a notebook and was furiously scribbling notes like he might keel over and die if he stopped.

“Slow down, wait, so you said something about your family? And they told you to off yourself?” Lucien inquired, still furiously writing faster than he could reload his pen with ink.

“No, they told me to jump off of Bard’s Leap, it’s perfectly safe if you’re not an idiot.”

“What is Bard’s Leap? I thought that was the village we are going to?” Inigo piped up. Morwen flicked a lock of hair out of her face before shaking her head.

“It’s sort of like… a temple, but also a palace?” she began, “it’s where the summit of the Blooded Twelve takes place. The city we’re headed to is called Lost Valley in the common tongue, and Bard’s Leap is at the top.”

“And they’d have you jump off of it? Have you gone mad?” I interrupted Lucien’s budding thought.

“If they were going to kill me, they would have done it while your prick was in the wind,” Morwen snapped back, “the jump off of Bard’s Leap is to prove loyalty to one’s Reach. That’s to say, their family.”

“Your family is dead, I thought?” I commented, but immediately realized that she didn’t need a reminder.

“Yes, which means I’m the matriarch of my family, which means I have to jump into the Druasynach, Bard’s Leap and the pool below it. If I die, they’ll know I’m not one of them, which means you’ll all die as well, so it’s a good thing I am who I said I am.”

“What have I gotten us into?” Lucien whined finally, breaking a moment of silence. Morwen let out a harsh laugh, clear and vicious like a crow in some distant forest.

“Think of it as a big family reunion, and I get to take you three along for the ride.”

“Out of the frying pan, as they say,” Inigo added.

Into the fire.


	17. My Fellow Beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party enters the Forsworn city of Lost Valley. An old suitor of Morwen's makes an appearance. The Dragonborn makes the jump from Bard's Leap.

For the first time in five years, I was home. The Lost Valley stretched out before us like a deep scar in the flesh of the Reach, a grand chasm of plateaus, cliffs, and falling water that fed into the rushing river below. Small wooden houses and yurts made of fur and leather dotted the walls of stone on either side, connected to one another by rope bridges and carved stone steps. Once a city of enslaved Nords during the Merethic era, its eroded stone and intricate carvings were now decorated in earth-toned drapery, displays of bone and fur, and ocher paintings done by my people. We entered the city through the mountain pass, hidden to outsiders by the magic of our priestesses, and came out onto a plateau at one end of the lush valley. Lucien, Inigo, and Kaidan all followed me, weary but awed by the scene in front of them.

“It’s beautiful,” Lucien breathed as we looked on from horseback, before glancing at me, “are you alright, my friend?” 

“Better than I thought I would be,” I gave him a smile, which he returned gracefully. I checked on Inigo and Kaidan as we dismounted. The two of them eyed the massive stone arch that lead into the city with distrust. The carving upon the face of the arch was that of a dragon, with it’s mouth agape like it were breathing fire. From behind its teeth, magic gleamed like heat on stone, barely visible, but the keen eyes of both hunters had noted it.

“It’s a gatekeeper!” Lucien exclaimed before I could offer an explanation, “it’s exceptionally old magic. It detects whether or not a visitor has been given permission to enter through the gate. If you don’t have permission, well,” he made a zapping sound and wiggling his fingers comically. Inigo’s face journeyed from weary to impressed, but Kaidan adopted a scowl that I recognized as his disdain for magic in all its forms. I had seen him react this way before, but purposely avoided bringing it up. If he wanted to act a fool about how my people protect themselves from his kind, he’s free to bring it up. His scowl persisted as we entered the city and descended a steep, worn stone staircase that followed the natural curve of the cliffside. The outrider that had spoken to me waited at the base of the stairs, next to an overhang that looked out onto the river. It was fenced off from the rushing water, and a grand leather tent was erected upon the uneven stone.

“Ail, Morwena cai Brennach,” he greeted me, holding out an open palm and sweeping it from his shoulder to his hip. His bare chest, and every other part of him for that matter, was covered in tattoos of a deep red ink. Depictions of battle and bravery, and of good harvests and plunders, were scrawled across his tanned skin. His hair was long, the color of clay, and braided intricately to pull it away from his face. He wore a kilt of fur, and tall boots of leather strapped with hemp braids. I returned the gesture, meeting his dark eyes curiously.

“Ail, outrider,” I nodded towards his empty swordbelt, “you’ll understand that we cannot lay our weapons down as you have.”

“You are not a guest here, but a resident, as far as Madnach is concerned. You are welcome home after your deeds in Markarth,” he gestured into the open flaps of the tent, “he insists you dress accordingly.”

After convincing Lucien to strip of his tunic and put the pelt of a dead animal against his bare skin, the four of us were outfitted in the leather drapings of the Forsworn, and even Kaidan seemed to enjoy the craftsmanship. The leather and fur was stitched with sinew at the seams just as my mother used to do, and the underskirt was dyed with berries into a rich, deep blue. A fur sat across my shoulders, my breasts were bare, and a slitted skirt of rabbit skins and loosely-woven linen rested on my hips. The trio wore garb similar to the outrider, their chests bare and legs covered by a fur kilt. The cold of the wind that whipped through the valley bit at my skin as I emerged from the yurt, but I didn’t complain. There was something so comforting about it, like I was no longer wearing a costume. Our old garb was piled into a basket and taken by a laundress, a squat woman older than sixty with the distinct facial tattoos of a mother and wife, twice over. I counted the marks of seven living children on her doughy cheeks.

“I always thought the Forsworn to be filthy and uncivilized, but I can see now that I was mistaken. This is awfully freeing,” Lucien commented as we regrouped, swinging the layers of his kilt back and forth with a twist of his hips. The outrider glared at him momentarily, and I cleared my throat politely to draw his gaze from the clueless scholar.

“I didn’t catch your name, outrider,” I said sweetly over the sound of the river below us. The man smiled knowingly, revealing sharpened teeth.

“I thought you would recognize me once you were closer, perhaps you are not close enough to me,” he flirted, and I realized I had been speaking to an old friend, hidden behind new tattoos. His uncle’s daughter was my first love. In a way, he was my second.

“Rhori, I’m so sorry-” I began before wrapping my arms around his neck, my bare skin against his. He returned my embrace, and I felt Kaidan shift behind me.

“Your good health is apology enough, for five winters you were gone to us…” Rhori let his sentence trail as he pulled away, before turning to my companions and extending a hand.

“I am Rhori cai Muirach, and you are welcome in my city as friends of my friend,” Rhori’s razor smile glinted in the evening sun, and Lucien was the first to accept his hand.

“Lucien Flavius, at your service! I am simply fascinated with your people. Morwen is a very good friend of mine and she never told me about your city, or how you dressed, or any elements of-” Rhori raised an eyebrow at me as I elbowed Lucien, interrupting his blabbering.

“I am Inigo, it is nice to meet you, though I am unsure why we are here!” Inigo introduced himself with a graceful bow.

“I have only seen your kind once before, but not one of your brilliant coat,” Rhori chuckled, clasping Inigo’s bright purple shoulder as he greeted him. His face fell on Kaidan last.

“Ah, you wear the language of Old Ones, I am proud to meet you,” Rhori completed his introductions as Kaidan stood silent behind me. I chanced a look at him, and his face was set in an angry stare. He looked down at me as I approached him and placed a hand on his crossed arms.

“I don’t like this, Morwen,” he pleaded quietly, brows furrowing further, “we can still leave-”

“I will not leave,” I matched his expression, pulling my hand away. Hurt fell on my face just as it fell on his, and I turned on a heel to follow Rhori into the city.

Despite Kaidan’s brooding, he stayed with us as we made the ascent to Bard’s Leap. The sun had set long before we arrived, and festivities at the peak were lit up by glowing lanterns strung between posts, and fires roaring in pits that were scattered across the plateau. Below us, the Lost Valley glittered with the lights from homes and hazed with the smoke from chimneys, but many of the citizens were here among the music and food. I hadn’t spotted Madanach yet, but I knew this was his doing. A display of power as much as it was culture. The Reach was almost completely unified, and I feared for its Nord residents. After my arrival, all twelve families containing old Blooded Reachmen were in the Valley, and the hold of the modern, Imperial world on the Reach was waning with each passing day. I recognized many of the faces from Cidna Mine, and as we weaved through the crowd of dancing and celebration, I spotted the last upon the eroded throne of Bard’s Leap.

Madanach was a terrifying, mountain lion of a man with a mane of stark-white hair, and a large beard to match. He was built like a fortress, better now than when I had seem in withering away in a Nord prison, and sported new tattoos to match his deeds. A shadow sat under his forward brow, ochre decorating his amber eyes. The Breton sat sprawled out on the stone seat, dressed in a magnificent set of black furs. Valecat, I had only seen it once before, my father had hunted one down Northwest of Haafingar. We approached, and I knelt briefly before starting to address him. Rhori took his place beside the throne, standing taut and still as the lantern light basked his strong form.

“I know who you are, Brennachi,” Madanach waved a worn hand, as if to dismiss formalities, “the Beast-girl of Markarth approaches the Leap. Have you considered my offer then, Morwena?” His voice was rough, but regal in his own way. I looked back at my companions; Lucien gave an uneasy smile, and Inigo hazarded an awkward thumbs up. Kaidan was further back, but I could see worry dance across his face.

“Aue, I will jump,” I nodded. Bard’s Leap was really the name of an ancient Nordic aqueduct that fed into a pool of water below it. The water held in the stone basin at the heart of the Valley was crystal clear, if not for a gentle blue tone as it danced in the moonlight. The water was deep enough for anyone to survive the jump, but it was the willingness to make the plunge that was important. Madanach offered me a pardon for the murder of my kin, and to fully recognize my blood, some months ago when I had freed him. Back then, the Forsworn were a fractured boogeyman in the fringes of the Reach. Now, under Madanach’s leadership, they were a frightening people of anger and persistence. I stood still as Madanach commanded silence from his court. Hundreds of eyes watched hungrily as a priestess covered my face and chest in an intricate design of charcoal paint. The King in Rags observed as I approached Kaidan, who was standing stalwart near the edge of the stone plateau. He looked magnificent, even in strange garb.

“This is important to you,” he stated, his voice small under the sound of the water rushing over the ledge. I nodded. He sighed slowly, deep red eyes not meeting mine.

“If something happens, Rhori will keep you safe,” I started softly.

“You’ve done stupid things before, Dragonborn, I won’t hear a word of your goodbyes,” he smiled at me for the first time since Riften, before pressing his lips to my forehead. We lingered there for a moment, my chest barely grazing his abdomen, heat from his body cutting through the lofty breeze coming down from the mountain’s peak. I pulled away, and stepped with bare feet into the sunken waterway that fed out onto the Leap. The drums resumed their pounding, in a new rhythm meant to announce a jump from the summit. I had only heard this pattern once before; I was a girl of seven when I watched a Breton man from Karthwasten plummit to his death after fooling even the priestess. It turned out that he was half-Nord. There is no word for compromise in Reachspeak.

Rhori approached my side as I calmed my breath, holding a hand out for my garb. I stripped myself naked without complaint, placing the furs and skirt into his open palms. He wished me luck, his face contorted slightly after seeing Kaidan and I speak. I wasn’t here for a social visit, he realized. I didn’t like that he had me figured for a prospective mate, something to own and keep in a small home for the rest of my life, until childbirth or sickness took me. He nodded as I stepped forward, before rejoining the crowd behind him.

“Tonight, dear brothers and sisters, we witness the last of the Blooded Twelve enter the fold,” Madanach spoke in the common tongue, and I was surprised to see that my people accepted this. A new era, indeed. “Morwena cai Nox, last of Clan Brennach, you murdered your kin for their attempted perversions of your body and soul, do you accept my pardon?” The drumbeat picked up speed, and I answered.

“I accept!” I called to him, not facing his throne but instead the fall below me. I inched forward towards the edge.

“Do you accept the challenge of the Leap, and death should your heart be false?”

“I accept!”

“Do you accept the title of Razor of the Reach, for the soaking of your blades in Nord blood, during the liberation of Cidna’s silver?” I didn’t expect this one. A title meant responsibility, and Madanach sprung this on me deliberately.

“I accept.”

“Very well, who will witness the fall?”

A witness takes punishment should the one who makes the jump dies. Rhori piped up.

“I will witness,” his voice was low and powerful, and I glanced back to see his sharp face staring hard back at me. My heart fluttered, even more so as I reached the edge of the aqueduct, preparing to jump. The pool below was still, and surrounded by blankets of moss and creeping ivy.

“Very well,” Madanach gestured forward with a lazy hand, and I stole a final glance at my friends, before stepping forward and launching off of the aqueduct, and into the pool below.


	18. Fear No Evil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan pouts through most of Madanach's celebrations, but he and Morwen find a moment alone after Inigo scolds Kaidan's method of engagement. Madanach gives the Dragonborn a gift.

Rhori peered over the edge of the plateau, blood-red hair slipping around his face as he leaned, before confirming Morwen’s safety at the bottom of Bard’s Leap. I let out the breath I had been holding, and Inigo and Lucien joined me as the music and dancing resumed almost immediately. 

“That was terrifying,” Lucien stated shakily as we waited for Morwen to reappear up the massive stone stairs. The stranger from her past, Rhori, waited at the top of the staircase with a blanket and her clothing. She was picturesque when she appeared, like a nymph from the folktales Brynjar told me when I was a boy. Her lengthy black hair was plastered to her lithe naked form, and her wet skin glittered in the lamplight. I didn’t even bother trying to hide my staring, as I stole a glance past her hips and down to the folds between her legs, only just hidden by a layer of hair that matched the ones on her head. My mouth became dry as she approached, wrapping the blanket Rhori gave her around her narrow shoulders.

“You look like someone’s died,” she teased as Inigo clapped her on the shoulder. Her body shuddered in the cold as she made an effort to blot the water from her hair.

“That was scary, but magnificent. Razor of the Reach, I wonder what that means to Madanach,” Lucien commented, adjusting a stray lock of hair from her shoulder as she wrapped her kilt around her waist, robbing me of the view as she dressed.

“I was wondering the same, but for now,” she scruffed Lucien’s hair as she walked up to me, before grabbing my own garb by the waist and pulling me towards the festivities behind me, “let’s drink.”

Forsworn celebrations are much more free than any that I’ve ever seen. The closest match would be a wedding in Sentinal, but that affair was far more modest. The dancing, the socializing, and even the theatre was, to some degree, promiscuous. You didn’t have to look very hard in any direction to see a couple tangled in an embrace, and halfway through the evening, I blinked through the blur of strong wine to a woman being taken from behind to the cheers of an audience by a small fire pit, her body bare and face made of ecstasy as the man behind her had her with powerful thrusts. Her moans made Morwen blush, though it could have been the wine. Three of us sat by the largest bonfire, drinks in hand, as a handful of Troubadours told the story of some Reachman’s legend, Red Eagle. Inigo had disappeared somewhere to no one’s surprise. Morwen sat next to me, but on her other side, Rhori was closer to her as she leaned up against him. I tried not to be jealous, and was thankful when she stood up after the play had concluded.

“Will you dance with me?” she extended a hand to me, and I shook my head drunkenly.

“When will you stop trying to make me dance? I’m not exactly graceful,” I grinned at her, but she pouted.

"Fine, I’ll go on my own then,” she teased, her voice slow and sultry through the haze of her drink. Lucien was deep in conversation with a young man around his age with tattoos across his chest, legs crossed and hands flying wildly as he explained something. Rhori stood as Morwen drifted towards the growing sound of music, and the rider stole a victorious glance at me paired with a mischievous smile. More pairs of dancers rose up from the sitting circle around the fire, and the power of the drums took the Dragonborn away in its current. I had never seen anyone move quite like her; her hips flicked side to side with ease to the beat of the drums, and her strong abdomen rolled as she danced. Her arms found Rhori as I watched, and I looked away as he leaned into her movements, wrapping his arms around her bare chest, breasts pressed against him and moving with the flow of her body.

I found Inigo in between two topless women by one of the smaller fire pits. He had his arms around each, and was saying things to them with a greedy smile that would make a whore blush. He smiled even bigger when he saw me approaching, weaving in and out of clusters of party-goers.

“Ah, my large friend! Meet my two new friends,” Inigo said, grinning and stealing a generous look at the buxom woman to his right.

“Oh my,” the one on the left purred, shoulder length brown hair tossing as she leaned forward, “pleasure to meet you. Tell me, is it as big as the rest of you?” she pointed a tattooed hand to my groin, and I looked away shyly, joining Inigo on the ground by the fire after he gestured for me to join him. I took a swig out of the bottle he thrust into my hands, and let out a sigh.

“I swear, this will be the last damn party I let her drag me to,” I moaned to Inigo, who tossed his hand at me dramatically.

“You do not mean that when there are so many beautiful women here! I am sure there is someone here that will be willing to put up with your groaning,” the Khajiit teased, and followed my eyes some twenty feed ahead to Morwen and Rhori, with their moving bodies tangled together in a fluid dance. Morwen’s laugh was sharp enough to cut glass, and I heard it over the music as Rhori whispered something into her ear.

“Ah, I should have known, there are only eyes for one inside your big head,” Inigo pinned his ears for a moment, before continuing. “You will not win her by sulking.”

“I’m not sulking-”

“You are sulking a little bit,” the woman to Inigo’s right cut in. Her accent was very similar to Morwen’s, her eyes as green as Morwen’s are blue. “There’s a reason our men choose to marry a Reachwoman, we’re notoriously hard to pin down.”

I left Inigo to his company, feeling Madanach’s eyes on me as I passed by his stone perch. I waited, finishing off a bottle of ale as I leaned against a stone pillar away from the dancing and chatter, until Rhori released his grip on her waist and gave her a playful bow, before leaving the festivities as the hour grew late. I tried to think of a way to get her attention, but she spotted me before I could think of what to say. She snatched a hazy bottle off of a nearby wooden table, before weaving her way to me.

“If I asked you to follow me, will you promise not to moan about it?” she took my hand from across my chest, and pulled me around the stone pillar before I could answer. The Leap was built into the peak of the mountain, only another 60 feet up or so before the harsh marbled rock came to a deadly, jagged point. She dragged me away from the music, further towards the mountain’s last incline before finding a spot to step up on. With very little effort, she began scaling the rock with one hand, tossing a glance over her shoulder to see if anyone had followed. I stood on the ground beneath her as she pulled herself up onto a small ledge.

“Come on then, I’ve seen you do harder things,” she teased as she beckoned me up. I sighed, following her steps up the jagged bluff. I pulled myself up onto the ledge, breathing heavily and rubbing my temple as my head began to spin.

“What’s this about, Morwen?” I sighed as I pinched my nose. She grabbed my hand again and began dragging me up the staggered ledges that formed a path up the mountain. The clouds were low here, and a fog cradled the mountain as we curved around it, further away from the festivities. I rubbed my eyes again, and opened them to see the other side of the mountain, with its curves and cliffs bare of any human interference. The sky before us was a rich, deep blue, and an aurora was faint but beautiful up ahead. The stars were especially bright here, like spilled milk across the firmament. Morwen held her breath as I looked on, before looking down at her and catching her eyes. She smiled, chest rising and falling as she also tried to catch her breath.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed, my shoulders finally relaxing as a silence fell around us. A single gnarled tree sat on the ledge with us, its trunk bare of any bark and its leaves a particularly rich emerald color. Morwen sat underneath it, feet dangling off the ledge, and beckoned me to join her. We passed the bottle she had brought up between the two of us, the harsh homemade wine searing our throats as we looked out onto the cliffs of High Rock together.

“Would you ever leave Skyrim?” I asked finally. She thought for a moment.

“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted finally, passing the bottle to me. “Leave this whole dragon nonsense behind. Tell the Greybeards to stick it.”

“They sort of deserve it, don’t they?” I laughed, nudging her playfully. Our arms touched, and she didn’t pull away. She cleared her throat.

“Would you leave? Again, I mean,” she tilted her head, loose hair shifting like silk.

“I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, so no, I suppose not.”

“Your debt is paid, if that’s stopping you.”

“That’s not it, I mean, I’d stay even if, I dunno-”

“Even if what?”

I paused, taking a slow sip of wine, before passing her the bottle to finish.

“The sky could come crashing down around us, Dragonborn, and I’d be at your side through it all,” I paused again, “I do want you to know, that you’re-” I cleared my throat, “you’re very important to me.”

“Am I? I figured you were sticking around for Lucien’s lectures,” she jested, and I could only laugh nervously in response. My heart was threatening to gallop out of my chest, and I leaned into her for just a moment before freezing. It was Morwen who leaned up towards me, pressing her lips gently to mine. It was soft compared to the kiss we had shared at the Thalmor Embassy, it was true and gentle. She tasted like wine and honey, and her pouting lips felt like velvet against my dry ones. I kissed her back, placing my hand on her shoulder as she reached up to cup my face. She pulled away only when a particularly loud shout from the party below broke the silence.

“We should probably head back,” she decided, quickly rising to her feet and snatching the empty wine bottle from the mossy rock below us. I rose as well, and silently followed her back down the route we had come from. As we rejoined the festivities, Lucien sought us out and rather soberly informed us that Madanach was asking for Morwen. I followed further as she approached the stone seat of the King in Rags, and he looked down upon her from his throne.

“I have a gift for you, Dragonborn,” he drawled, before standing slowly like a statue come to life. His form was absolutely massive, and his height rivalled mine as he lead the way from the dwindling celebrations, large black fur on his shoulders swaying as he went. Morwen hazarded a glance at me, and I shrugged my shoulders subtly. Whatever this gift is, its not a public one. We descended the massive flights of stairs leading into the lower levels of the Valley, walking past the Leap’s glittering blue pool, and into a tunnel carved into the rock face under the large plateau above. The walls were slick and covered in moss, and the ground was cold from under my bare feet. We walked for some time, before the tunnel opened up into a small, cavernous structure after we passed through a locked iron gate. I eyed the key suspiciously, and noted the pocket that Madanach tucked it into as we entered the room. It was a prison only by definition, and could be more accurately described as a tomb. Cages hung from the ceiling by chains, and were filled with the long-dead corpses of men. Cells lined the walls, also carved into the rock, and the space was lit by a single brazier in the middle of the room. Morwen stared at Madanach, who eventually explained.

“I had heard tales of the Dragonborn being a savior for those of us unlucky enough to live among the End of Days. Now, I’m a very old man, but I’m no fool. The Season Unending has arrived, Morwena, and I believe this might help you. He came to us hoping to research our people for his cause, said it was important, was nearly gutted by Rhori and his riders when he came too close to the gates,” Madanach sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He spoke again, his words deep and slow. “He’s looking for Alduin’s Wall, an old prophecy concerning the Dragonborn and The World Eater’s fate, so I give him to you, in hopes that you’ll spare the world for me, and for your people…”

Madanach approached a cell door near the end of the row, and used the key to slide the lock open. From the dark corner of the cell, a small form roused from sleep. It was that of an old Nord, older than Madanach by the looks of him. His arthritic back curved as he sat up on the stone floor, rubbing sleep from his wrinkled eyes. Morwen and I watched on as the man shielded his eyes from the dim light, before Morwen stepped forward towards him.

“Who are you, old man?” she demanded, though rather softly. Her voice bounced off of the stone walls, echoing gently.

“Tell her what you told me, Lottach,” Madanach barked into the man’s cell. He groaned before he answered weakly.

"M-my name is Esbern,” he began, an old and rusted voice drifting out of the cell, “I was a scholar for the last of the Blades.”


	19. Monsters and Makers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Esbern, a Blades scholar, joins the party as they prepare to leave Lost Valley. Morwen talks about Igni, the girl she loved. Rhori and Morwen share a rather loaded moment alone, before the two of them discuss Madanach's plans for Markarth's sovereignty from the Empire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty heavy, both on the politics and subject matter. Just leaving a general content warning here for grief/loss of a loved one, some descriptions of war/violence, and Rhori generally being a bit of a traditionalist which could make some folks uncomfy.
> 
> I promise Kai and Morwen get to spend more time together going forward! I'm having fun setting up what will end up being a really grand and self-indulgent ending for Morwen's political career, seeing as the actual game is really lacking as far as politics goes. At this point I think I can safely say that this is really just a very complex, canon-divergent expansion on the few morsels of plot that the game provides, I hope everyone is still enjoying even though we've gone off the rails.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave comments/requests/suggestions 💞!!!

“I had you figured for an outrider, like your uncle,” Rhori’s mother, Saibh, blabbered on as she ladled stew into the bowls sprawled out on the low wooden table, “but Dragonborn? Fate has touched you something fierce, child.”

The thick smell of herbs and smoked meats hung in the air of the old wattle and daub hut. There were seven of us, not including the old woman, packed onto the sunken stone floor around a roaring fire, with our legs crossed and mugs of a warm drink in our hands. Lucien and Inigo were both nursing hangovers, and Rhori hovered to my right, in front of the entrance to his home. Kaidan and I sat together next to the fire, our legs barely grazing as we poured over the leather dossiers we had found at the Thalmor embassy. The dawn had come and gone, and neither he nor I had slept yet. No doubt his mind was swimming about the dossier that mentioned Brynjar. It was horrifying to read, but urgent matters took priority. I’d pick his brain about it later. One of the subjects in particular sat across from us, Esbern, a scholar for the lost organization of dragon hunters, the Blades. He thanked Saibh graciously as she refilled his mug from a copper teapot, taking a long sip from it as I studied him.

“Missing one Summit was one thing, but when we didn’t see your family for the second in a row, I knew something was amiss,” Saibh continued, adjusting her apron after she returned the kettle to the grate over the fire. The drink she had brewed for us was something I thought I’d never see again; a sort of tea made from the seeds of a tree local to the reach. It tasted like chocolate, and was only just bitter enough to make Lucien’s face pucker as he sipped. Rhori’s mother was the source of his good looks, and even in her old age she was a handsome woman. Greying red hair slinked down her back in a frizzy braid, weathered dark cheeks wrinkled as she smiled, just like she had done a thousand times. My father was sweet on her when they were children, and I could see why.

“I would have returned, if I could,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. Saibh tossed a free hand at me, handing out bowls of stew with the other.

“I’ll hear none of that, you’re just as much family now as you were then. Igni would be proud of you,” she spoke of her niece, the girl I had loved in my early teen years. My father struck her down when we asked to be wed a year before I left, at the year’s Summit. I remember the look on Saibh’s face as she shielded a younger Rhori’s eyes from the blood welling out of his cousin’s neck. My heart burned, indifferent to the stares of Lucien, Inigo and Kaidan from between sips from their bowls. Esbern disconnected from the conversation, opting to stare into the flames in the firepit instead of at me.

“She loved you, and after we had heard of your father’s arrangement with that Briarheart from Red Bluff, I said to Rhori that I knew Igni would have forgiven you for what you did,” Rhori placed a hand on his mother’s shoulder as tears pricked my eyelids. I looked down at my cup, feeling my face grow hot. I looked up at Lucien, who had taken a break from pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to rid himself of a headache to tilt his head at me, eyes twinkling quizzically.

“Igni was a girl I was sweet on when we were children,” I explained, not breaking away from his eyes, “my father killed her when we asked to be wed.”

“It was his decision to make to deny her, but it was for his own ego that he cut her down where she stood,” Rhori hissed, patting Saibh’s shoulder as she finally collapsed in an old wooden chair behind Esbern. “That was what law looked like before Madanach was freed, man doing what he pleased. Now, the Reach is nearly back where it belongs, in the hands of Reachmen.”

“Absolutely fascinating…” Esbern joined in finally, sharing Lucien’s aptitude for hungrily absorbing information, as if every conversation was a research project. “and now, this Madanach rules the Reachman?”

“Not quite,” I sniffled slightly, sparing Saibh and Rhori from answering the Nord’s questions, “he’ll guide the Reach, but we have no need for Jarl or King.”

“Hear, hear,” Rhori chimed in, wicked grin on his face. He didn’t meet my eyes as I looked, upset that I had denied his request to spend the night with him, no doubt.

“Amazing, so then, this Summit, it allows the families to get together and make decisions for the entirety of the Reach? What are the sort of things that are discussed?” the old man’s questions were numerous but simple. These are things I could answer outside of Saibh’s hospitality, and noon already had arrived with its smattering of strong winds and threats of rain. I wanted to leave in the morning, but Esbern as well as Lucien and Inigo needed to rest. I adjusted to depart in the evening, which would give me plenty of time to meet with Madanach and Rhori away from my companions and away from Saibh and her younger daughter, a girl of thirteen who sat shyly in the corner of the hut. As Kaidan went to gather the horses, and Lucien and Inigo helped Saibh pack rations for the rest of the trip, Rhori and I ducked out of the hut and headed for the grand collection of leather tents that housed Madanach and his advisors. The structure sat on the Eastern cliff of the valley, and it was a ten minute trek up several flights of stone stairs, followed by small neighborhoods of yurts that housed many families and businesses, then up stairs again. We stopped only once we were at the top, and together we leaned over the stone wall that separated us from the cliffs below. Lost Valley bustled with life in the early afternoon, and we watched it silently for a few minutes, its people moving through the streets like running water.

“My mother is right,” Rhori said finally, loose red hair falling over his face like a length of fabric.

“About what?”

“Igni, she would be proud.”

“She would be frightened,” I sighed, slipping my arm around Rhori’s and leaning into his shoulder, “what monsters this life has made us.”

“It is true then, what the old Nord said, about dragons coming back to life?” Rhori sounded worried. Esbern had spent the latter half of the morning explaining what he knew about dragons returning to Skyrim, how they had originally enslaved the old Nords who inhabited the land, and how one particular dragon, named Alduin, was prophecized to return. The old temple he’s been seeking, known as Druanelach, “Sky’s Peak,” in Reachspeak, holds more information, or so he claims.

“Yes, they seem to be coming from old burial mounds, and the one that wakes them razed an entire village to the ground with its pinky toe just as the Stormcloak leader was about to be executed.”

“Our agent in Markarth mentioned that people say this Storm-Cloak ripped the Nord king apart with his voice, the very same power you wield. Is this true?”

“Yes, though he isn’t, well, like me. The Nords can learn this power, as can anyone else. I was tutored by Nords when I first found out who I was…”

Rhori shook his head.

“You should have been looked after by a priestess here, not by some weak Lottach who would have you study books and practice breathing until you are old and grey,” he snarled, his hand tightening into a fist.

“You sound like Kai,” I commented, absentmindedly before realizing how much this would hurt him.

“Do I?” Rhori’s tone became harsh, and his dark eyes set into a scowl. “Who is he to have your thoughts even when he isn’t here?”

“Tell me you aren’t jealous,” I said coolly, turning so my back rested against the mossy stone wall.

“I will not. It’s no secret to anyone here that your affections would be better suited with your own kind.”

I scoffed, quickly quenching Rhori’s anger with a stroke of his cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment, leaning into my hand like a dog to its master. He was made of raw edges, sharp cheekbones and strong jawline, prominent nose and hard chin. When we were children, my mother used to call him a Little Fox, and would slap his hand away when he would reach for food from the dinner table before everyone had a chance to sit down. I could slap his hand away now, but I was enjoying his attention.

“You aim to own me, Rhori,” I purred, moving to lean up against him as he turned to face away from the valley. My words were cold, but my skin was hot as I let my hands wander up his chest, my own pressing against his abdomen as I brought him closer. He looked down at me, deep brown eyes warm and complicit to the affection.

“What is so wrong with that?” he whispered, placing his hands on my waist conspicuously and eventually raising them to my breasts. His thumbs found my nipples, which now stood upright in the breeze, or perhaps in response to his exploring hands. A familiar wetness made the place between my thighs ache, and I wrapped my thigh around his so my nub made contact with him through my tunic. I hoped that would alleviate the knot low in my belly, but it only made things worse. His kiss found my mouth hungrily, and I moaned involuntarily as he pinched my nipples, rolling them in between his thumb and finger. I squirmed against him, my body begging for a sensation I had never felt before. I wondered what it would feel like to lay with a man, to have the piece of him I could feel through his kilt rub against the sensitive muscles of my sex. I had seen the act before, watched how men ravaged their partners, and how they lost themselves to each thrust. Rhori broke away from my face as his hands cupped my cheeks, both of us panting and groaning at each other’s touch. I thought of how public, how open it would be to have him where we stood, though the courtyard was empty, and the place between my legs produced another rush of wetness.

“You’ll do well to remember what I did to the last man who tried to own me,” I whispered softly into his ear as I brought my hand under his kilt. His cock was warm and throbbing, and he yelped when I took it in hand and sunk my nails into the skin, threatening to bleed it as I gave it one stroke, before releasing it and turning on a heel away from him. I stalked across the courtyard, leaving him stunned and buckled over slightly against the stone fence. I gave him a final wave over my shoulder, before opening the flap of Madanach’s tent and ducking inside.

Madanach stood over a worn wooden table covered in hand-drawn maps, many of which had flag pins or daggers jutting out of them. Out of anger or simply running out of pins, I wasn’t certain. His bushy brows shadowed his small eyes, and when I approached the table, he took a moment before looking up.

“Ah, I was wondering when you’d come to say goodbye. That was quite a show you put on last night, a Reachman doesn’t fight quite the same without a hard cock to get him through it. You look just like your mother-”

“I’m not here to mount you or reminisce, so lets get this over with, shall we?” I snapped, my pulse flying wildly under my skin after leaving Rhori.

“Very well,” Madanach groaned as he rolled his shoulders back, before plopping down in an old chair behind him, leaning on one elbow as he peered at the map from his new vantage point. I approached the table and tapped a finger at the Ram sigil of Markarth. Madanach and I met each others’ gaze.

“No.”

“Why not?” I barked, impatient now as Rhori finally joined us.

“The Nords will never accept our victory inside the city.”

“That’s not what I saw,” I reminded him of the day I broke him out of Cidna Mine. Even some of the Nords of Markarth had joined us in cutting down the Imperial Guard stationed within the city walls, painting the white stone streets with their blood. Some had lost family to us, wives or sons, husbands or daughters, but they lost their whole livelihoods to the Silverblood family that monopolized each and every one of their businesses. They forced those loyal to the Reach into slums, whether they were Reachmen or not. Cidna’s cells filled up quickly with proud Nords with big mouths.

“You were seeing nothing but red that day,” he scolded, tossing his hand aggressively.

“I saw injustice!” I corrected, “I saw the widows and daughters of men who lost their lives in Cidna spill the blood of its rapists onto the streets. That silver is for us, and for those women, not to decorate the necks of the Imperials in far away provinces! Let Nords in Markarth be rich of silver and gold, but let it be theirs.”

Rhori rapped his knuckles on the wood table.

“I agree with the Dragonborn,” he stated plainly. Madanach scoffed.

“I won’t risk what land we have already gained.”

“Then I will,” Rhori snapped back. “I have been an outrider for this city since I was old enough to understand what that means. I could have three hundred men from the neighboring clans take the city as soon as the Storm-Cloak pretender weakens Markarth’s walls.”

“I have been leading this rebellion since before you were suckling your mothers teat, outrider! I will not risk a free Reach for one city.”

“Do you want the Reach, or only part of it?” I snapped, jamming a finger down at the map again “the Thalmor have bunkered down in Understone Keep, and their boot suffocates the heart of the Reach. Talos worshippers are hunted like we are, they’re crucified like we are, are these not our sufferings as much as theirs?”

“Ulfric treats our Elven cousins like dogs, I won’t compromise by giving him power,” Madanach’s tone was quieter, and his eyes grew tired.

“So you’ll lend Rhori’s riders, our healers, good and able fighting men, to what? The Empire? Or keep them to yourself?” I pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Will the Forsworn sit by and do nothing while dragons set the sky ablaze and the Empire scars our land?”

“They spit as they call us Forsworn,” Madanach warned, eyebrow raised at my use of a Nord’s word.

“They spit because while you wrote your letters telling my mother and father to obey the wishes of witches and demons, their lands bleed!”

Madanach slammed his fist onto the table, causing pins and papers to jump.

“I could not have known!” he bellowed, white hair flying wildly around his gaunt face. “Hagravens and their covens are not at the whim of man, it is not my fault that weakness seeped into the Reach in my absence.” 

Rhori flinched at this, but I didn’t react. No doubt the Hagraven’s and their worshippers were executed once Madanach had resumed his grasp on Lost Valley and its surrounding settlements. Chopping someone’s head off is one thing, but when it happens to be your friend, or your kin, is entirely another. 

“I will not sit by and watch you make monsters of good men and women,” Rhori broke the brief silence calmly. He turned to me, ignoring Madanach’s glare as he gave me a small bow of his head.

“I believe the Dragonborn is right, and that the Reach should be whole again,” he said softly, just as a polite cough came from the opening of the tent. Kaidan, now dressed in his own tunic and trousers and not furs and loose linens, stood awkwardly at the entrance.

“We better get moving, before the sun starts to set,” he offered gently, and I wondered how much he had overheard.

Rhori’s youngest sister caught up with us just as we were about to head through the mountain pass and out of the city. Her red hair flew behind her as she galloped on bare feet, gripping something in her small hands. She silently passed it up to me, shyly meeting my eyes for a moment before turning to head back the way she came.

“What’s this?” I asked more harshly than I meant to, but the girl answered nonetheless.

“Mother said to bring it to you, she didn’t say what for,” Saibh’s daughter had her intense face, and her red curls whipped around her face as she turned heel and sprinted back through the large stone gate, flying down the stairs and out of sight. 

The package that she had handed to me was smaller than my palm, wrapped in waxed paper and tied with a small cord. I undid the knot and cupped my hands to hide the contents from my curious companions. A black stone, smooth and perfectly round, sat in the wrappings. Instead of glinting like a normal stone would, it seemed to lack any shine and absorb any light. It was about the size of a strawberry, and I reached silently into my bag and flipped to a page in Silus Vesuius’ portfolio to confirm my suspicions.

“What is it?” Lucien tilted his head politely, craning his neck to see what I held.

“It’s an old pommel,” I answered, feeling the heat of Kaidan’s gaze on my cheek as I tucked the package and the journal away, “a keepsake, that’s all.”


	20. Simplest of Gestures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party successfully locates Sky Haven Temple, and opts to stay for a few nights while Esbern translates the ancient wall that they find inside. Kaidan finds a longsword remarkably similar to his mother's within the Temple's walls, raising questions about his own sword's origins. Morwen and Kaidan spend the days so close yet worlds away, as they bond over sparring and simple gestures of kindness. An unanswered question turns the Dragonborn back to High Hrothgar.

“She kissed you?” Lucien tilted his head as Inigo grinned as wide as his fuzzy cheeks would let him. “Like, on the lips?”

“Do you know what a kiss is, scholar?” I poked. Three of us rode behind Morwen and Esbern, both of them deep in conversation some twenty paces ahead. Inigo matched my pace on the right, and Lucien on the left. We had been riding for a handful of hours after leaving the Lost Valley, and night had arrived swiftly and silently. The stars up above were dim and framed by the Reach’s jagged mountains, but we had no reason to fear the dark. The squad of Justiciars that were no doubt on our trail before we had entered into the safety of the Valley would be slowed enough by Rhori’s riders for us to make it to Falkreath hold, and then through to the Rift again, but not before we stopped at the temple Esbern was convinced was so important. Morwen only barely agreed to make the detour. Inigo chimed in, returning to his usual self slowly after drinking enough alcohol to kill a horse the night before.

“This is good news, no? A kiss is very hard to do by accident,” he offered, bobbing along beside me as Artax tossed his head.

“Yes but, was it a kiss? Or a peck? Or a smooch? Those are different things,” Lucien scratched his chin, “I’m just having a hard time imagining Morwen courting anybody, not just you. Er, no offense,” he cleared his throat awkwardly as I shot him a look. “Nasty business with her father and all that, did either of you know?” 

Inigo shook his head. I was thankful for the change of subject.

“I am no stranger to loss as well, it can make the most simple of gestures seem impermanent and frightening,” the Khajiit pinned his ears briefly as he spoke, eyes focused on some distant memory.

Morwen called back from her position ahead of us, breaking the silence between the three of us.

“We’re to cut off the path up ahead, we should be there in time to get a good night’s rest,” she spoke of the same temple Esbern had been searching for, the home of Alduin’s Wall. The soft-spoken scholar called it Sky Haven Temple, and explained, among other things, that it held within it a prophecy that could shed some more light on Morwen’s status as Dragonborn. I gave Morwen a weary glance when Esbern referred to her as “the ultimate dragonslayer.” Whether that is true or if the Blades were just the remnants of madmen grappling to dead legends, I couldn’t say. We dipped down into a creek and across it, heading for a crevice between two large plateaus. It was only about one horse wide, and I offered to take the lead. Inigo held the back of the line, and Morwen, Lucien, and Esbern made up the middle. At some parts of the path, the rock brushed my shoulders and pinched at my legs. Only when the path opened up did the hollow of the mountain reveal itself, and we all sat in awe of the scene, staring in silence. Sky Haven Temple sat lodged into the inner mountain walls, and the lock on the large iron doors only gave way with a drop of Morwen’s blood. I flinched as she drew a blade across her palms, and we followed her lead as she headed through the doors.

Sky Haven Temple was a grand chasm of a space, at the centre of which was a stone table that could easily sit a hundred men. The architecture of the room was fluid and carved intricately, with a massive hearth dominating one wall in between two archways, and the other wall dominated by a large relief from floor to ceiling. To the back of the room were more iron doors, and the ceiling was carved open and full of dawn’s orange light. The stone was all dark granite, and nature had done what it does best; the stone chairs, the walls, even some parts of the floor, were mossy and covered in a thick layer of dust and grime.

Days before, when we arrived, it was nothing but a tomb for dust and rotting books, but now the stone was free of grime and mold, braziers crackled happily along the old stone walls, and Morwen and Inigo were playing a rather dangerous game of vertical tag while scaling the sides of the old temple’s atrium, using old reliefs and broken sconces as footholds. Lucien and Esbern had given up trying to stop them from running amok for fear of breaking something. The space itself had transformed mainly by Morwen’s hand, less of a museum now and more of a cozy fortress. She and Inigo brought the bedding up from the horses’ packs and untacked them, letting them roam the front courtyard where they grazed on the soft tufts of grass that had overtaken the old stone. We spent a day cleaning and another day scouring the many rooms and wings of the temple. It seemed there were no end to the secrets that this place held, and I stumbled across another when Morwen and I uncovered the door to the kitchens hidden behind a blanket of moss. Hidden behind a set of barrels was a leather sheath, much like the one I had hidden in the Rift, but older, and more supple somehow. The blade it contained rang viciously as I unsheathed it, and Morwen gave me a curious smile when I showed her.

“Look here,” she pointed at the fuller of the blade as I closed an eye to check its balance. “’Dovah-Feyn,’ it means ‘Dragonbane,’” she ran a finger down the fuller, and the metal sang. The shape of the blade, even the color, were all so comforting. The curve was so slight, and as I tested the swing, it felt so familiar.

“This looks awfully similar to your mother’s sword, Kai,” Morwen whispered, pointing now at the handle under my palm, “even the leather is stretched the same, you can see where it was hardened by applying water, and then heat…” Morwen’s fingers grazed my palm as she inspected the hilt in my open hands. I shivered at her touch. It had been nearly a week since we shared a kiss at Bard’s Leap, and I hadn’t found a single moment alone with her since.

“Would you like me to show you how to use it?” I offered suddenly, my voice bouncing around the tall, narrow walls of the galley kitchen, “I’m sure the silverware can wait.”

Within a few minutes, we had found some old training staves and were out in the back courtyard clearing the sparring grounds. The yard itself was made of the same grey-black granite as the interior, but walls around it weren’t closed in, but instead just thick pillars roofed in the same shallow tiles as the rest of the temple. A view of the entire Reach was awaiting over the edge of the mountain, its craggy peaks and deep valleys stretching as far as the eye could see. The air was thin here, but neither of us seemed to mind, even as we panted in a still second, staves colliding and sweat dripping down our temples.

“Good, but don’t just swing with your arms, swing with your torso, try it again,” I instructed, pulling my quarterstaff away from hers and twirling it boastfully, before returning to a defensive stance. One step forward, then two, and on three, her staff hit mine with a thwap, faster than the last. She was a prodigy, but I took a chance to show her up as the opening of the temple door distracted her. I swept the staff at her knee, colliding with the side of it and causing her to buckle, before flicking my wrist back and causing the staff to gently hit her neck. Lucien whistled playfully as Morwen hit the ground hard on her arse, and she winced before blowing a raspberry at him.

“If he hadn’t distracted me-”

“You’d still be alive, should that have been a real blade,” I chided, raising a brow at her as I pulled the practice staff up towards my face once more. She rose to her feet, sliding back into position as she gripped her own staff with two hands at the base. “Again.”

She lunged forward, but instead of attacking on three, she attacked on two, and swung at my knees before swinging the staff around and hitting me at the waist. I was caught off-guard by her strategy, and she looked down at me smugly as I regained my balance.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” I scolded playfully, and she responded by sticking her tongue out.

“You’re just upset because I’m clever,” she dodged as I went to sweep her legs, moving fast as lightning as my swings were slower than her reactions. Inigo’s cackle joined Lucien’s gasps as I lunged fruitlessly at her, accidentally leaving my left leg open for her to kick out at. The playful blow sent my balance out from underneath me, and I hit the ground flat on my back, only to see Morwen peer down at me, blocking out the midday sun with her halo of raven locks. She giggled, giving my head a gentle pat with the toe of her boot. I cursed silently as my cock grew impatient, demanding attention for what might as well have been the umpteenth time since we arrived. There was something more relaxed, less guarded, about her being here. She kept her hair loose most of the time, except for when she was finished bathing, then she would spend nearly an hour brushing it out and plaiting it into a long braid, finishing it with a piece of leather. 

A few days after our first training session, I was sitting on the floor in front of the hearth after I had washed the sweat from the day’s drills from my skin, when she sat behind me wordlessly. I hadn’t bothered to put a tunic on, just trousers, and was surprised to feel one hand on my bare shoulder, and another in my hair with a slight tugging feeling. I attempted to look around, but a sharp flick to the ear caused me to move my head back where it was.

“What’s this then? Will you have me wear pantaloons next?” I joked as she tugged at a knot in my hair with a comb.

“I’ve known you for nearly five months, and I’ve never seen you brush your own hair. Lucien has speculated that you may actually be a well-groomed troll, but I don’t think you’re groomed at all. Anyone could teach a monkey to bathe…” 

“Oi!” I laughed despite her insults, tilting my head to steal a glance at her. She flicked me again, holding my head still with sharp nails to my scalp. I could have purred like a common housecat at her touch, and my skin rippled slightly as she squeezed my shoulder to steady her ceaseless tugging. The ordeal was over, and then it wasn’t, as she placed the comb down next to her and began separating my hair into equal sections, before skillfully braiding it back with quick fingers. The plait started at the crown of my head, and crept down to my shoulder blades. She finished it with a scrap of cloth, and patted my head gently when she was done.

“What was that for?” I looked back at her with a quizzical look on my face. She was wrapped in a simple cloak, and exhaustion causing her eyelids to flutter slightly.

“You make me not want to be nice to you,” Morwen pursed her lips slightly, before they split into a wicked smile, and I let out a laugh in return. She kept my eyes to hers, blinking slowly with heavy lashes over piercing blues. Esbern’s dragging footsteps echoed down the stairs from the slight platform of the massive stone relief, which he had been studied nearly nonstop for days. He held his notes in one hand, and gestured with the other as he muttered to himself much like Lucien, and he only looked up when he was within speaking distance of Morwen and I.

“It seems my translations are as finished as they can be,” he began as he sat in the neighboring stone chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose briefly before continuing. “This wall, named Reman’s Wall by its creators for the emperor that commissioned it, seems to depict the rise and fall of the Dragon empire in Skyrim…” he flipped through his notes to a previous page. “There is something about a Thu’um that is said to rend Dov, that is to say, any dragon, to the ground, but there is something amiss with one passage, let me see-” he flipped forward in his notes rapidly.

“Yes, it doesn’t actually say what the words to that Thu’um are, I was hoping you might know,” Esbern snapped the leather journal shut, causing dust to plume slightly by his wizened face.

“I’m not sure, no…” Morwen furrowed her brow slightly as she thought. “I imagine the Greybeards might have an inkling though.”

“Did you just say Greybeards?” Lucien whined as he entered the main hall through the doorway next to the hearth. “I don’t fancy making that climb just to have them try to muzzle you again.”

“You very well have to, as much as I hate to say it,” Esbern paused to sigh, “those old monks may have the answer we’re looking for, or rather, what you’re looking for, Dragonborn.”

“And what is it that I’m looking for?” Morwen nearly barked, haughtiness rising in her throat as she spoke. “We don’t even know how dragons are returning to Skyrim, much less what I personally am supposed to do about it.”

“Well, if you’ll let me finish,” Esbern adopted a brief scowl before resuming his measured explanation, “it is almost certain that if the dragon that was sighted at Helgen is the black-winged Al-du-in, the World Eater. His destiny is to resurrect his dragon empire, and your destiny, it seems, is to stop him.”


	21. Beasts of Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party is back at Elysium. They plan to rest and then head for the College of Winterhold, but not before Kaidan voices his concerns about consulting with mages. Lucien, Inigo, and Morwen will continue to the College without him, as the Dragonborn and he part ways for the first time since before the gala.

“An Elder Scroll?” Lucien sounded positively amazed. The past fortnight had been full of fantastical surprises, but this one topped them all. Inigo sat in an overstuffed leather armchair by the hearth, filing his claws, much to Kaidan’s silent annoyance. Elysium Estate’s warm atmosphere and the crackling of a fire was a much needed solace after over a month of chaos and silk stockings.

“I’m just as puzzled as you,” I scratched his blond head as I paced by him, bare feet padding on the warm wooden floor. “I can’t imagine that there’s anyone keeping it behind a flimsy glass case in their parlor, or else this would be quite simple.”

Lucien nodded thoughtfully, deep blue eyes focused on the dancing flames within the hearth. The four of us were absolutely exhausted. From Sky Haven Temple, we made the trek to High Hrothgar. Lucien wanted to stay a couple of days, which gave me enough time to convince the Greybeards to continue my training. When I asked about what this mysterious Shout could be, the only one out of the four ancient monks resisted the idea: Paarthurnax. High on the peak of the Monahven, the old dragon dwelt. He was the true leader of the Greybeards, a secret they had been keeping from me for some months now. Paarthurnax and I had spent a few days training and talking, he even told me stories of his youth, and his kinship with Alduin. I didn’t share these details with the other three, keeping the personal conversations between the old Dov and I close to my heart. It had been a heavy few days, and I wanted nothing more than to drink and laugh and sleep and not think of the terrible task ahead.

“If this were happening twenty years ago, we could have just popped down to the Imperial City and asked my father if we could have a peek, but…” Lucien trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck absently.

“I do not think the Nords just leave those kind of things lying around,” Inigo added.

“They certainly don’t,” I brushed my hair back from my face, chancing a look at Kaidan. His eyes met mine, but he was silent still. I kept him at a distance since Lost Valley, and reuniting with Rhori. If he was jealous, he wouldn’t say so. But I could see behind his thick eyelashes that his thoughts were getting tangled, and I felt just about the same. Something about letting him in scared me, but for now, his friendship was enough. I didn’t know how to show him that, but I let it be.

“Winterhold’s College might have the answer you’re looking for?” Lucien suggested after a moment of stillness. Kaidan immediately furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure if they’re taking new students, but even just a peek at that library could give us some answers?”

“Us?” Kaidan growled, finally joining in.

“You’re free to stay outside in the snow,” I commented, which coaxed a giggle from Inigo as he began buffing his claws on his silken vest. Kaidan rolled his eyes.

“Who knows what twisted things those mages get up to high in that college? I wouldn’t trust them if you paid me,” Kaidan grumbled with the same smug finality he had used back in Riften before the gala. My cheeks become flush as a surge of anger rippled under my ribs. Inigo quickly piped up as he finished grooming.

“It is getting late, how about a drink and song, yes? I have written a new one that I would like to devote to Lady Elenwen, the smelliest High Elf North of Bruma!”

Kaidan retreated to the guest quarters as I distributed goblets of wine to Lucien and Inigo, who were in higher spirits as I sat with them instead of pacing, and began plucking on my lute instead of pouting over the whole situation. The still air was soon filled with Inigo’s song and Lucien’s wit and the airy, dry sounds of the lute’s strings as I played until the small hours of the morning. We drank and laughed until we could barely stand, and I tried not to think of how empty the hearth felt without Kai sitting in front of it, his booming laugh bouncing off of the old plaster walls. The sun started to peek through the foggy windows before we even bothered to get some sleep, and the three of us managed to pile into my bedroom to keep the noise away from our brooding hunter. Inigo curled up in the high-backed armchair near my own hearth, and Lucien slept peacefully with his head on my shoulder, blond waves of his hair sprawled across his face. I waited as the dizziness from the wine wore off, staring at the ceiling until I submitted to the ordeal of sleeplessness. Slowly, I slid out from under Lucien’s weight, and changed from the riding finery I had been wearing and into a simple pair of trousers and a linen shirt. I tucked the blouse into the waist of the pants, threw an apron over top, and silently crept through the house and out into the mid-morning sunlight.

On the one side of the house near the stable shed, about an acre of grassy land stretched West, fenced in by old stone walls that matched the stone of Whiterun’s battlements. There was another barn at the Western corner of the property, which comprised of a hayloft and old, open stalls. I opened the gate to the paddock and waded barefoot through the knee-height grass, tucking into the open door of the barn to find most of the livestock napping on the dusty floor or chomping down on the massive bale of hay I left in one of the open stalls. I grabbed a bucket and set to work filling it from the pump at the back of the barn, and spent an hour refilling water troughs and mucking the stalls. I was drenched in sweat and plastered with dirt on top of that before I got to grooming the horses, even Artax and Clive, and the sun was high above when I finally got to emptying my saddlebags. Spare clothes, extra arrows, scraps of waxed linen that used to contain rations, all got sorted back to their proper places. It was only when I emptied the hamper full of clothes into the washbasin out near the back wall of the house that Kaidan found me.

“And here I thought that ladies had servants for that,” he said playfully. I ignored him for a moment, dragging tunic across the washboard rhythmically, before responding.

“I thought you knew me better than that.”

His face crumpled a bit, realizing his attempt at humor had failed.

“Can I help you?” his offer was sincere, but I was far too annoyed at this point to accept.

“I could have used the help two hours ago when all the actual work was getting done, but thank you,” I felt guilty at brushing him off, but there was something about his kindness that frightened me so.

“I suppose I deserved that,” he decided, folding down next to me in the grass. I sat with my legs wrapped around the washbucket, pants soaked in splashing water and sleeves rolled up past my ankles. Next to me was the chicken coop, and the two hens clucked happily within as I had been occasionally tossing them fatty safflower seeds from my apron pocket between washes. I rung out the tunic and made to get up to hang it, before Kaidan snapped it from my hands and effortlessly pinned it to the line that stretched from the house to an upright pole a few metres away. I rolled my eyes, but grabbed another piece of clothing from the hamper nonetheless as he waited patiently for the next piece to hang. Silently, I washed the various tunics and trousers and shifts and underskirts and he diligently placed it on the line. 

He smiled awkwardly as the chore soon became done, and the afternoon sun hit him like a fresco of reds and golds. His hair had grown longer since we had met by at least a few inches, and its deep, warm black was pin-straight as it escaped the half-bun he usually kept it in. His eyes were as red and complex as ever, a murky russet set under expressive brows and thick lashes. He had trimmed his beard recently, but kept its length and secured it at the chin with a scrap of leather. His tattoo shone across his tanned cheek, crimson and just as puzzling as ever. When he smiled down at me, his teeth were beastly and sharp. I tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear, before breaking his gaze and standing to dust myself off.

“Are you really going to the college? We could solve this some other way, y’know-”

“I don’t see why you’re so cautious,” I shifted my weight as we both leaned against the paddock’s fence, watching Artax and Weir groom each other’s sloping backs, their thick necks pressed together and tails flicking from side to side.

“I’ve just…I don’t see what they know that you couldn’t find out somewhere else. The Imperial City-”

“The Magistrates aren’t exactly centuries old, with lived experience as lieutenants in a dragon army, as far as I’m aware.”

“That’s true, but-”

“And I don’t see any other prestigious teaching establishment tripping over themselves to help us,” I grew frustrated, hunching my shoulders as if to shield from Kaidan’s criticism.

“I’m just saying that it could be dangerous, magic shouldn’t be trusted-” Kaidan sighed, brow furrowing.

“Since when has that stopped you?” I backed up from the fence, crossing my arms over my chest.

“I swore to keep you safe, Dragonborn-”

“No, you swore to fight alongside me. A sword is different than a shield.”

Kaidan fell silent at this, face set in anger and shoulders tense. He looked out at the livestock as the cows lowered their heads to munch on the golden grass, and the goats bleated and honked as they chased each other around. His own horse, Keena, grazed by herself in the corner closest to Kaidan, her warm-black coat nearly identical to the color of his hair.

“I suppose you want the truth,” he proposed finally, shifting his weight from one leg to the other as he blinked away from the paddock, locking eyes with me.

“You promised,” I reminded him. Whiterun’s golden afternoon had granted us a cloudless sky, and he squinted slightly in its brilliance.

“I’ve made…mistakes, in my life. Magic was one of them,” he didn’t elaborate at first, but continued after I shot him a look. If he wanted to justify his bigotry, he’d have to commit to it.

“I fell in with the wrong sort of people, who worshipped the wrong gods, and I loved the wrong woman-”

“Oh, so it’s a woman, then?” I interrupted, more harsh than I meant to. His brow creased further.

“No, it’s just, she would use magic for the most awful of intents, I just can’t see how it-”

“How it can be used for good?” I butted in again, heat rising in my face. “How it could save your life?”

“Morwen, that’s not what I meant,” Kaidan scolded, turning to face me.

“So, what, an enchantress broke your heart, so now you have the right to scold me? To throw a tantrum when magic is involved, even if it means saving good, kind people?”

“You make it sound selfish! I…I just can’t justify using something so perverted and wrong to accomplish something noble, is all-”

“Oh, that’s all?” I rounded on him, taking a few steps back. Fury made my ears hot and my eyes sting. “Perhaps when your destiny is to save the entire world, you can say those awful things. But if being a part of something good upsets you so much-” I exhaled sharply, “-you should go.”

Kaidan made to retort, but his face twisted further with pride and anger. He looked down at his boots with the demeanor of a wounded beast more than a man. Shaking his head, he brought his eyes back up to mine.

“Maybe our paths will cross again, Dragonborn,” his goodbye wasn’t final, but it was the last thing he said to me before heading towards the house. I watched him go, broad shoulders coated in sunlight. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything more, or to call him back and forgive his awful words. By the time late afternoon rolled around, I peered out the kitchen window to see he and Keena starting at a lope up the cobbled road towards the city, leaving Elysium behind. Lucien and Inigo had sat themselves at the kitchen table, both of them processing what I had told them as they inhaled the tarts and cheese I set out for them. Lucien looked particularly crestfallen, and Inigo tried to comfort him between huge mouthfuls of food. With or without Kaidan, the path ahead was clear. The College of Winterhold was my destination, and with luck, the two weeks worth of riding would prove worth it in my quest to stop Alduin. I felt less brave than I had in months, and the world outside of Elysium was heavy on my shoulders.


	22. Distant Green Summers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Summit at High Hrothgar arrives nine months after Morwen and Kaidan parted. Both of them now respected leaders in their own rights, their reunion is a surprise to both the Dragonborn and the newly anointed Harbinger of the Companions. The major pieces in Skyrim's political game agree to a truce.

Rain’s Hand, Third Year of the Fourth Era. A year had passed since Morwen Nox and I had met. Nearly nine months since I had seen her last. At first, I tried to drink my feelings away, tried to be sweet on someone else, tried to fuck something without thinking of her. When that didn’t work, and her words to me still ached, I did something I swore I wouldn’t do; I became part of something again. Before Autumn had set in, I joined up with the Companions. For months I trained and ran bounties, killing bandits and drinking the nights away with decent company. I distracted myself with work, and soon Jorrvaskr Mead Hall became my home. In the deep winter, the war worsened. The Dragonborn was nowhere to be found as the dragon menace continued to ravage Skyrim’s villages and towns. In the early spring, a disturbance from the College of Winterhold became the subject of gossip. Tales of the Thalmor presence there being eradicated, a strange magic gripping the city and nearly blowing the rest of it into the sea, a new Arch Mage, a young woman, after the old one had passed away. Psijic Monks seen in Skyrim for the first time in hundreds of years. The Thirteenth of Rain’s Hand, I was bestowed the title of Harbinger. I was given the gift of Wolf’s Blood, lycanthropy, some time before this, but now it seemed justified. It suited me, I felt, even if it did make my beard a little harder to tame.

Lady Morwen Nox sat three seats down from me at the large stone dining table within the depths of High Hrothgar. I hadn’t planned on seeing her here, or at all for that matter. I imagined she had finally left Skyrim to its fate. It seems that she’s done the opposite. A well-groomed Lucien stood behind her stone seat, with a gentle hand on her shoulder. Her hair had grown longer since we last saw each other, and it was done up in a fine chignon, her robes were even finer silk, and her curves were barely hidden underneath, having grown more severe and rounded since I last saw her. I didn’t have a chance to speak with her yet, but when she saw me, her eyes held fire.

“Dragonborn, you’re here before the Summit of Monahven representing… The Explorer’s Society, the Undercity of Riften, and The College of Winterhold?” the Imperial scholar that attended General Tullius, the Empire’s military authority in Skyrim, piped up over the low, anticipatory chatter of the large room. Before the Summit was called, this room served as the library for the monastery. Morwen and I had spent a night here, when it was a mess of old wooden furniture and cluttered bookshelves. It was nothing short of a war room now.

“If you’d like to save ink, just put down Dragonborn, that’s D-R…” Morwen said smugly, trailing off after a disapproving look from Arngeir, who sat next to the scribe at the head of the table.

“We’re honored by your presence, Dragonborn, and we appreciate you calling this Summit to deal with this…dragon problem,” Tullius was diplomatic in words but his proud features were worn and sagging. What little hair he had left was greying and sparse, and his balding head shone in the dim light from the hearth and various stone braziers along the high walls.

“Let’s get this over with,” Ulfric Stormcloak sat directly across from me, his honey blond hair braided back in a fierce display of silver rings and dyed blue leather. He was quite terrifying in person, and it was made clear by his snarl that he didn’t want to be here. “If we’re to negotiate, she needs to leave.” 

Ulfric nodded to Lady Elenwen, who had sat down next to General Tullius, two seats down from Jarl Elisif the Fair, a girl barely Morwen’s age made Jarl by marriage alone. 

“You don’t get to decide that, so let us proce-”

“Ah, but I do, I think the ambassadress should leave,” Morwen butt in, her tone icy as she looked daggers at Elenwen. I shifted smugly in my seat as I watched the High Elf squirm; she nodded silently as General Tullius shooed her away, and the clicking of her heels on the stone was the only sound for a few moments as she left the room.

“Harbinger, it’s quite unlike Kodlak to smirk in the face of disrespect to one’s betters,” Tullius commented as I bit down a harsh laugh.

“Kodlak Whitemane is dead, General, and I am not him,” I hissed, and I heard Morwen bite down on a snort.

“Well, if that’s over with, shall we proceed?” Arngeir’s tired voice echoed around the chamber. His age demanded respect, even if I thought he was a tosser.

“I have something to say first,” Ulfric began, at which the Imperial legate, Rikke, snorted loudly. He continued. “We're here to offer a temporary truce to allow the Dragonborn here to deal with the dragons. Nothing more. I consider even talking to the Empire a generous gesture.”

“Are you done?” Tullius snapped, and Rikke rapped her knuckles on the stone table. “Because I’m already done listening to your horsesh-”

“General!” Elisif interrupted, and Arngeir gave her a gracious nod.

“Jarl Ulfric. General Tullius. This council is unprecedented. We are gathered here at the Dragonborn's request. I ask that you all respect the spirit of High Hrothgar, and do your best to begin the process of achieving a lasting peace in Skyrim. Who would like to open the negotiations?”

“We want Markarth,” Ulfric demanded, jamming his fat finger at the stone table. “That is our price for agreeing to this truce.”

“Aye, want to take in council what you’ve been unable to take in battle?” I chided, to the chuckles of the Imperials at the table. I could easily poke fun at them as well, but I didn’t explain that my criticism wasn’t me agreeing with them.

“The Harbinger is right, you can’t expect us to agree with this without a fair trade, Ulfric,” Rikke added, not sitting in her seat, but instead leaning on pinstraight arms over the stone table.

“Might I propose Riften as that fair trade, Jarl Ulfric?” Morwen piped up, her voice sultry as she addressed the Bear of Markarth. I knew what it looked like when she laid the charm on someone, and the Stormcloak leader wasn’t immune to this. “Surely the Imperials would like control of Cyrodil’s borders again…”

“The Rift would benefit the Imperials more than it benefits us,” Ulfric responded, tossing a lazy hand aside.

“But surely, Markarth would give you a proper foothold of the West.”

Ulfric simply nodded at this, a man of few words suddenly, after receiving Morwen’s advice. I wondered how long that had been happening, and what the extent of her control was. Tullius didn’t notice.

“You can’t seriously be considering giving up the Reach?” Elisif berated the old Imperial as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “You can’t be serious, General! I thought we were here to discuss a truce, not negotiate with a cult leader-”

“I’ll handle this, Elisif” Tullius interrupted the young queen, and she deflated in place, sitting back in her stone seat with arms crossed.

“Very well, Ulfric,” he continued. “You may have Markarth, if that is what the Dragonborn thinks is best, and Maven Black-Briar will assume leadership of Riften, effective immediately.” 

Shouts erupted from around the table. Legate Rikke and Galmar Stone-Fist, Ulfric’s advisor, were immediately at each other’s throat with barbaric insults. The scribe at the head of the table scrambled to write down as many details as possible, quill shaking furiously as he dragged it across the parchment in front of him.

“Are these terms agreeable for you, Jarl Ulfric?” Arngeir nearly shouted as he calmed the table down with a wave of his hand. The table grew silent for a moment, before Ulfric agreed verbally. Morwen leaned forward to grab a grape from a small platter in front of her, popping it in her mouth through a conceited grin as the table erupted again with arguments.

“Enough!” Esbern, the Blades scholar, roared over the commotion. He stood now, next to Arngeir, with wrinkled hands raised in frustration. “Don't you understand the danger? Don't you understand what the return of the dragons means?” A dumb silence fell over the room. I cleared my throat, and the old scholar’s eyes twinkled through his anger.

“Alduin has returned. Surely those of us who call Skyrim home can recognize that. The World-Eater! He grows more powerful with every soldier slain in your pointless war! Can you not put aside your hatred for even one moment in the face of this mortal danger?”

“Dragonborn,” Arngeir raised an eyebrow at Morwen in response to Esbern’s words, “can you confirm that the dragon that destroyed Helgen was truly the black-winged Alduin? Has the end been approaching all this time?”

Morwen’s face grew solemn at this. I leaned past the laps of the Jarls in between us, to see her nod silently, sloping nose and high cheeks making a breathtaking silhouette against the brazier behind her. Rikke held her head in her hands, and Jarl Igmund of Markarth broke the silence after a stunned moment.

“With all due respect, Dragonborn, your lack of experience makes this story all but forgettable,” the old man cooed venomously as discomfort rippled through the room. Morwen was a proud woman, and she didn’t let it show if she felt slighted. Jarl Igmund was the man who ordered the heads of the Forsworn to be tacked upon the city walls, but he didn’t recognize her as Forsworn now. She sat regal, with one leg draped over the other, leaning onto one arm of her seat.

“Very well, Jarl Igmund, what would quell these worries of yours? What will it take for you to realize there’s a threat baring its teeth at your city, and only a truce will save you and the ones you love?” she spat back, slowly like the words were dripping from her mouth. It didn’t sound like she was only talking about the dragons.

“I can vouch for the Lady Nox, I was her swornsword for many months before I took up the Harbinger’s Mantle,” I cut in before Igmund could insult Morwen further. “I saw Alduin with my own two eyes.”

“I can say the same, Alduin has been resurrecting his old cohorts, I’ve seen it,” Lucien’s polite voice was small but brave in the cavernous room. “Morwen has taken quite a few of them out, with a little help, of course…”

“Does this not please you, Jarl Igmund?” Arngeir addressed the Jarl, who looked like he had been slapped.

“I just don’t see any proof-”

“Ah, you cunts always want proof…” Morwen stood slowly, tugging at the sash along her robes to loosen it. She kicked the bowl of grapes she had been picking at across the table as she stood up onto it, boots making papers fly to the side and tankards filled with mead upend and spill across the stone. I nearly burst into a fit of laughter as I saw the look on Igmund’s face as she approached him, shrugging her robe off and revealing her naked upper body beneath it. There was nothing like Morwen’s complete lack of modesty to get a table of bored old men interested in what was being said, and I thanked every god I could think of that she was wearing leggings underneath, or I may have gone mad at the sight of her. My chest boomed with a hollow, dropping feeling as she turned to face the rest of the table, tits bouncing as she wheeled around completely topless as her robe fell to the stone table. A deep scar that spanned from her collarbone, down between her breasts where it crested to about the width of an apple, before thinning again into a spindly line that tapered off near her right hipbone. It was a mean, red-purple colored thing that looked like it once tore her open from shoulder to thigh, and it rippled at the edges as a burn from a housefire would. She had been hit full in the face with dragonfire, as I had seen her do once before, but this time, not magic nor I had come to her aid in time. The scar was at least a few months old, and it was an enchanting thing to look at, as if old magics dwelt beneath the skin.

“What kind of monster does this, do you think?” she challenged the room, pacing carefully down the table towards her seat again. “While you’re up in your palaces and your longhouses, there is a very real threat that ravages your countrysides and razes your villages to the ground! Who gives a fuck about who becomes Jarl, when you’ll all burn anyway…” she hopped off of the table when she reached the end of it, plopping back down in her chair and lounging back on it with her bare chest still exposed. Igmund said nothing, and Tullius waved a hand to dismiss the issue.

“Your judgement is welcome, as it always will be, Lady Nox,” the old General said with finality. Rikke nodded in agreement.

“Very well, what are your demands, General Tullius?”

A few more hours of delegation, and the talks were complete and the Summit ended. I gathered my fur from the back of my chair, when I felt a familiar tap on my shoulder as the room emptied. I spun around, not surprised to find thin air behind me. A bubbly laugh drifted from closer to the door, and I rolled my eyes slightly before following an invisible Morwen out into the hallway, catching vases and candlesticks as she knocked them off shelves on her way by. I spotted Lucien chatting with Esbern in the lobby of the monastery as we passed it, the upper hallway of the building was empty of angry Jarls or pompous Imperials. Instead, the scent I had missed all those months away filled my nostrils and fogged my mind.

Down the hall and around a bend into the living quarters, she passed by a small hearth that was built into the wall with dark grey bricks and sparsely decorated with a single tapestry. I saw the ripple of her form through the heat in the air, and quickly but gently snatched her from the shadows as her giggles bounced around the dusty corridor. I had her by the shoulders as she reappeared, robe now returned to her form but her hips not hidden to my hands as I slid my hands down to grasp them. Morwen looked up at me, lips parting so slowly and eyes so tangled full of emotion through thick, black lashes. I just barely whispered her name, and she pressed her head into my chest, wrapping strong arms around my waist. I held her back, closing the gap between us and burying my face in her now messy bun. Breathing into her, my pulse ripping through my body, I inhaled her scent, like that of distant green summers.


	23. Paths Chosen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morwen and Kaidan reunite and part ways with Lucien and Inigo. The Harbinger of the Companions brings the Dragonborn into his home, and reveals the last piece of a puzzle. Morwen receives a strange letter from a predictable enemy. Kaidan's "gift" is revealed to Morwen.

He looked magnificent. The cloak of the Harbinger draped across his shoulders, the steel plate befitting a knight upon his chest and limbs, the hardened face of a Northern man no longer petulant and angry, but measured and wise. His beard was braided and cuffed with a small copper piece, and his tattoo seemed darker and more weathered. He was broader, his muscles stronger, and his eyes sharper, yet kinder all the while. His lips barely moved when he whispered my name, and I melted into him as he held me, ignoring the jabbing of his armor as I let him.

“You look…” I started, unable to tear my eyes away from his as he pulled away slightly.

“Older?” he joked, looking down at me from his lofty height only exaggerated by my own short stature.

“I was going to say dashing,” I blushed. I put a hand on his chestplate, curling my fingers as if it would rip the armor away and let me feel the skin underneath. He stepped back after a quiet moment, breaking away from my face to look down at his boots. I heard Lucien call my name from down the hall.

“I’m so sorry, Morwen,” he looked up again from under thick brows. I shook my head, tossing a stray hair aside. “I should have…I dunno, minded my temper, or thought before I spoke, I-”

“I won’t hear it, you oaf,” I stepped forward, and our bodies nearly filled the narrow hallway as we stood a breath apart. “I’m glad to see you.”

“And I you,” Kaidan responded, just above a whisper. Lucien called my name again, further now as he headed in the wrong direction down the hall.

“Here! I’m over here, Lucien,” I called back to him, starting towards the main hall of the monastery. I looked back at Kaidan, who was still standing in the middle of the corridor.

“Lucien missed you as well, he’d be happy to see you.”

“I’ve got a lot to do, back in Jorrvaskr…” Kaidan trailed off, fiddling with a signet on his middle left finger. It was dark steel, I noted, not pewter.

“Let me give you a bit of advice, Harbinger,” I began, backtracking to hook my arm around Kaidan’s, before starting again towards Lucien’s voice. He walked alongside me as I practically dragged him, hesitating at first. “If you leave your work with someone who actually wants to do it, they’ll do a better job than you ever will. We make pretty heads for crowns, but once we’ve earned them...”

“It’s hardly my first week, I can’t very well leave it.”

“And why not?” I batted my eyelashes up at him. I missed him. I missed his laugh and his company and the way he fusses over meaningless things. His snoring no longer attracted every bear within fifty leagues of our camp and his humming no longer drifted from the bathing room in Elysium as he scrubbed the dirt from his arms and blood from his hair.

“Kaidan!” Lucien gasped as he finally spotted us coming up the hall. His eyes met Kai first, then me, then our intertwined arms. He barely bit down a gleeful squeal as we approached. I noted Inigo’s absence, and had a feeling I knew where he was. He developed an inkling for pranks over the winter, and not even I was safe from his hijinks. 

“Does this mean you’re going to come with us again? Oh, how delightful!” Lucien began to ramble before Kaidan could object. I had hoped he would do as much. “…we have a fascinating agenda for this week, Dwemer Ruins in the Jeralls, a lost artifact of the Sixth House, and some catacombs in Hjaalmarch that-”

“It’s good to see you again, Lucien,” Kaidan said gracefully, slipping his arm out from mine. Just as he thought he was going to get away with a polite wave of his hand, Inigo appeared in his usual outrageous fashion by descending from his position on the high ceiling with a crisp thud, landing on a table behind Kaidan on all fours and causing dust to plume around him and catch the torchlight. Kaidan chuckled heartily after whipping around, as Lucien startled dramatically, clutching a hand to his chest.

“I am afraid I cannot let you leave here without a fight,” Inigo challenged as he dusted himself off, straightening his jerkin with a tug, “though I would prefer you fight something other than me.”

Kaidan caught my eye as I watched the three of them reunite, Lucien demanding a hug and Inigo trying to inform Kai that he had a dent in his chestplate. When Kaidan looked down, Inigo flicked him playfully on the nose, much to the delight of Lucien as he burst into a fit of giggles. Their laughter and playful insults filled the vaulted space quickly, and Arngeir emerged from the council room just in time to shush them harshly. Meekly, the three of them turned to me as I leaned up against a stone pillar, raising an eyebrow at their antics.

“Come on boys, the Harbinger has plenty of work to do,” I beckoned to Lucien and Inigo as I started towards the temple’s doors. “It was lovely to catch up!”

Kaidan hesitated for just a moment, before calling to me.

“Dragonborn,” his heavy footsteps echoed around the now empty hall, closing the gap that I had just made between us. Lucien looked like he could explode. I turned on a heel to face the hunter. 

“Will you, erm… would you like to, uh…”

Inigo coughed pointedly as I shifted my weight to one hip, relaxing the opposite leg.

“Would you like to join me back in Whiterun? I would be…erm, honored, to show you the halls of Jorrvaskr, my lady.”

“I suppose I could manage it, though that amount of mead in one place must make one terribly illiterate,” I replied. From behind Kaidan’s broad form, Lucien, who had been harping on about fate and romance since I sent Kaidan away, nearly squawked with excitement as he clasped his hands together. Inigo nudged him hard, but the romanced look on the scholar’s face didn’t fade even as we readied the horses outside and adjusted our plans.

“I think I will head back to Markarth, my friend,” Inigo announced with a pat on his mount’s grey shoulder. “I have business with the silversmith there, I will meet you when I am done?”

I nodded, embracing my friend before he mounted and took off down the mountain path, he and Artax moving as one unit as the nimble Khajiit stood on the stirrups and twisted around to give one last wave goodbye. Lucien was moaning about his itinerary.

“What about the ruins? And the catacombs? And the-”

“We will get to it, my dear scholar,” I assured him, helping him adjust his saddle’s cinch, much to Clive’s dismay. “For now, you’re free to pick nearly any city to stay in, and I’ll send word that you’re coming. The builders should have Proudspire done now, if you wanted to stay in Solitude for the time being?”

I spoke of a new gift from Jarl Elisif, Proudspire Manor, in Solitude’s Spire District. After clearing the massive bounty I had in the Western holds, Solitude quickly became one of my preferred properties. I was on my way to a Thaneship, and would probably have it by now if it weren’t for tedious College business.

“I’ve been wanting to visit the Macnarian Library for some time now…” Lucien debated, nearly all woes about being sent away now vanishing at the prospect of tedious study. “Oh, very well, but don’t forget about me! I should like to see Avanchnzel for myself.”

“I promise I will send word once I’ve finished business in Whiterun,” I glanced at Kaidan, who looked confused at the idea of this being a formal visit. I decided not to give him the satisfaction of regaining my affection so quickly. Besides the fact was the matter of my reintroduction to Whiterun’s albeit meager court, and the expectations of marriage that were being thrust upon me. I had just passed my twenty-first birthday, and the fact that I wasn’t already married was somewhat shocking to many of the Nord nobles. Many had already thrown their sons my way in an attempt to stake a claim to my extensive holdings and impressive fortune. I put spare coin made into the Guild, and then Riften, and then repairing and rebuilding the College and the surrounding city, but I still managed to be appallingly wealthy. I owned land in every hold, held patron to many artists and donated what I could to rebuilding what was lost to dragons and the war. When I think back to the frightened girl that escaped the clutches of a Briarheart some six years ago, it was almost laughable to think she would be troubled by anything resembling a political marriage.

Troubled I was, regardless. As Kaidan and I rode for Whiterun, we shared stories of our adventures. He didn’t speak about his time at Jorrvaskr, but instead of his work, playing knight for those in need, traveling to all corners of Skyrim to recover stolen heirlooms and track down eloping daughters. We laughed and kept each other company as the late afternoon turned into evening and then to night. Keena had grown from an awkward filly to a proud, impressive looking mare of a near-black coat, barded in a fine leather saddle and matching martingale. She made Weir look ancient as she spryly navigated the steep shortcut over the mountain near Brittleshin Pass. Under the rippling aurora of Skyrim’s clear night, the gap that had kept us apart all this time slowly began to close. It was only when we trotted up to the stables that our ramblings were interrupted. A boy leaning idle against the stall door with the crimson scarf of the Courier’s Guild reacted quickly to my arrival, clearing his throat politely as I handed Weir’s reins off to the stablemaster.

“Lady Nox?” the boy handed me a letter sealed with a black stamp when I confirmed.

“Who from?” I tilted my head as I took the letter from his gloved hands.

“Not sure, never seen them before,” the boy made a nervous glance at Kaidan, who was looking over my shoulder as I inspected the unopened letter, “wore a black robe, hood over their face, paid me quite a lot to get that letter into your hands.”

I tipped the young courier and he thanked me, before dashing off to the main road outside. Kaidan looked down at me, his head tilted slightly. Recognizing that I was being pressured by his curiosity, I snapped the black seal on the letter and unfolded it slowly. Its contents didn’t surprise me.

A black hand was printed onto the fibrous parchment, and under it, a simple, dragging sentence scrawled in what I knew wasn’t red ink.

“WE KNOW.”

Kaidan read it upside down, and met my eyes with worry.

“What’s that about?” he nearly scolded as I folded the up the letter by its creases. I rolled my eyes, not at him, but more the whole situation.

“I’ll explain later.”

I tucked the letter into a pocket of my robe and headed into the city, with the Harbinger in tow. He didn’t ask any questions, which made our ascent to Jorrvaskr through Whiterun’s cobbled streets quick and painless. Even near midnight, Whiterun’s streets bustled with tavern patrons and street performers. Summer was only a few weeks away, and Whiterun reaped the abundance of being the only war-neutral hold left in Skyrim. The war had reached a stalemate, which left room for trade to flood into the city at full pace. It was only a touch too gratuitous for my liking. Boughs of expensive tundra blooms and lavender rested on garden walls and above doorways, just in time for the Second Planting Festival. In the harsh glow of torches along the city streets, I stole a few looks at Kaidan. He kept his eyes focused on Whiterun’s lofty Cloud district, and once we arrived, Jorrvaskr was host to the dwindling flames of the roasting fire in the centre of the hall, and a few straggling Companions coming down from what was most likely a night of revelry and mead.

Kaidan’s quarters were at the end of a long hallway in the sunken lower floor of the mead hall. The snores of Jorrvaskr’s drunken residents filled the cobbled stone hall as I followed him wordlessly, and I entered the chamber ahead of him as he held the heavy oaken door open for me. The ceilings were low but solid, and the walls were covered in tapestries and canvas paintings more to insulate the cool basement than to decorate. Weapon plaques and heavy shelves covered in small trophies lined the walls, a four-poster bed stood handsomely in the far corner, and the open space near the centre of the room acted as a small dining area and sitting space. At the very middle was a circular firepit, which crackled merrily with a tended flame. The cold stone walls and floors suffered no dust or mildew, and it made sense when the aging maid emerged from the bath with a bucket in one hand and a basket full of various cloths and brushes in the other. She looked as old as the building itself, and her sagging jowls pulled into a kind smile as she spotted us at the doorway.

“Forgive me, just tidying up,” she chirped, readjusting her hold on the bucket full of sloshing water, “I’ll be out of your hair in just a minute, I find the best work gets done when the moon is out.”

The maid raised an eyebrow pointedly as she passed us on her way out of Kai’s chambers, and I shook an inkling away as Kaidan pulled his cloak off and hung it to one side, making to undo the straps of his pauldron but not without a low groan. I wrapped my robe tighter around my shoulders, watching him struggle for a moment before jumping in to help.

“Does it still bother you?” I asked, and he cocked an eyebrow. “The shoulder, I mean.”

“You did your best,” he didn’t answer my question, tension releasing from his face as the ceremonial piece slipped from his upper arm and into my hands. He placed it aside and kicked his boots off, wearing only a fine, dark brown tunic and fitted trousers. His bare feet padded across the sparsely carpeted stone floor, and I followed his lead, kicking my boots off, freeing the pin from my hair, and removing the outer layer of my garb. A light kirtle made of cotton that sported a laced neckline was all that was left between my skin and the cold that he was clearly accustomed to. He was silent as he poured two cups of wine, handing one to me and took his seat on the blackless daybed that was sitting angled near the firepit. I sat beside him on the floor, closer to the flames and lapping up their warmth for a few moments, before breaking the silence between sips of wine.

“I thought of you often,” I didn’t chance a look at his reaction, only tasting the spices in the wine and the stiffness of the air.

“You’re not getting soft on me now, are you, Dragonborn?” he teased gently, placing a strong hand on my shoulder from his seat above me. We both took in the fire for a moment, before he spoke again. “I thought of you, too.”

“Are you happy here?”

Kaidan thought for a moment.

“Not…as much, I don’t think.”

“As much as what?”

More silence, a slight cough as he set his cup down on a low conversation table beside him.

“I’ve done a lot of things I shouldn’t have, hurt people that didn’t deserve to hurt, made promises I didn’t intend to keep,” he inhaled sharply, “but I am happy with the path that I chose.”

“And what path is that?” my heartbeat thudded behind my sternum, demanding I pay it some mind as Kaidan’s hand slipped from my shoulder and down to my mid back, his fingers finding their way under the waterfall of hair that hid the lacing of my dress.

“The one that brought me to you.”

I held my breath, eyes stinging as I turned to face the hunter. He looked down at me, thick lips parted and eyes full of fire.

“Kai, I-”

“You don’t have to say anything, just,” he thunked down next to me on the floor, untangling his hands from my hair and taking my fingers into his large palms. I traced the lines there, scars mingling with the seams of the skin like roads drawn on a map. His breath was shallow as he continued, “just know that I, well, I don’t want to scare you off…”

His brow furrowed as he thought, and we sat for a few moments, cross-legged on the stone as the fire popped and danced beside us. I fiddled with his fingers, getting a good look at the ring on his left hand. Instead of the sigil of the Companions, as I expected to find, it was a snarling wolf head, an expertly forged relief with two tiny red stones for eyes. I studied it hungrily, knowing that I had seen it somewhere before. His readiness to pull his left hand away confirmed not only gossip about the Companions, but my own suspicions.

“The ancient Nords would call you Vulon-Krein-Kiin, Moonborn,” I commented, recalling my studies with Paarthurnax as I traced the heart-line on his left palm. It carried from his index finger to the crook of his wrist, “this doesn’t frighten me.”

“And if it wasn’t the only curse?” his voice was almost pleading.

Lycanthropy, and something else as well? I suspected he hid something close to his heart from the moment he promised his sword to me, but something inside me demanded the answer now more than it ever had before.

“Very well, little prince, what else stakes a claim to the mighty Harbinger?”

Kaidan shook his head slightly at my teasing, shifting his weight before pulling his hands away. He stood up, and left me sitting with a confused expression plastered on my face for a moment as he made his way over to the bed, pulled open a drawer of an end table, and produced a small package from it. It was wrapped in near-black cloth, and tied with the crimson ribbon of what could only come from a silk garment, judging by the tears being only on the one edge. He sat back down, and handed it to me.

“What’s this, then?” I held the bundle gingerly, noting the faint smell of incense permeating from it.

“The last secret,” he nodded, struggling to keep his hands from pulling back from their resting place on his knees. I eyed him for a moment as I tugged the silk away from the bundle and unwrapped the contents. My anger came swiftly after my surprise. It was the hilt of Mehrunes’ Razor, the missing piece of the artifact I had been hired to locate nearly a year prior. I had found the other two parts, but the third had eluded me for some time due to a family in Morthal allegedly selling it off some years ago. It took everything within me not to explode.

“I’ve been looking for this for nearly a year, I’m sure you’re well aware,” I chided as I let the hilt roll out from its bed of black linen into my hand. It was ice cold.

“I’m sorry, I… I should have told you sooner.”

“How did you find it?” I rolled the thing around my palm, watching the crescent-shaped crossguard catch the orange light from the fire.

“It was…given to me, many years ago…” Kaidan’s voice dripped with guilt as he continued, “I owe you the truth.”

“I’m inclined to agree, you look like you might choke on it and die before you tell me why you’ve hidden this from me for so long.”

“Have you ever been in love, Dragonborn?” he asked suddenly, after a loaded silence, his face contorting slightly as it does when his words were formulating behind his lips. My heart jumped.

“I don’t see how that’s relev-”

“It is, just…I want to know your answer,” his accent was thick as I could hear a knot form in this throat.

“Once, perhaps, though I was far too young to know what I was feeling. Saibh’s niece, and, well, you know how that turned out…”

Kaidan thought on this for a moment. I met his eyes.

“Have you?”

Kaidan offered more of a grimace than a smile.

“Aye, about the same as you. There was a noble girl I was sweet on when I was a lad, but she was married to some courtier, and another girl that was…well…”

I nodded, releasing the tension in my face as he looked for my reaction.

“She was trouble. Lust or infatuation, maybe, but it wasn’t love. I wanted to know if maybe, you would understand that…er…”

“It’s alright, Kai,” I wrapped the hilt back into its fabric, tucking the seam under and setting the bundle aside.

“I did horrible things for what I thought was love, and I can’t bring myself to hide those things from you any longer. I want you to-” he stopped abruptly, his lip quivering slightly. “I would like to offer the whole truth, if you’ll let me.”

He told me of the Blooded Dawn, the cult he had fallen in with, and the sins of those he surrounded himself with. He told me of the woman, though he wouldn’t speak her name, and the way she manipulated him into doing such terrible things. His eyes welled with tears and his lips were pulled into a frown as he recounted every detail. I let his anger pour out of him, I didn’t flinch when he raised his voice or when his fingers formed a fist in his lap. When he was done, the morning was young and the fire was reduced to embers that pulsed slowly in their nest of ash.

“I’m so sorry, for everything. If…if you want to go, I would understand,” Kaidan’s eyes were irritated from the lack of sleep, and his voice became gravely with exhaustion. I shook my head softly, flicking a stray hair from my face to look up at him.

“What if I want to stay?”


	24. With Friends Like These

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan wakes abruptly to find that Morwen had been kidnapped from right under his nose. He tirelessly tracks her down, finding her nearly two days away from Whiterun. The Brotherhood had found her, and presented her with a unique opportunity.

“Oi!”

A hard banging at the door made me jolt.

“Are you in there?”

More banging. My head felt like it was about to split in two.

“Let me try,” Farkas’ husky voice penetrated the wooden door as he shook it by its knob, and the banging of his fists soon followed.

“Brother, are you in there?” Vilkas’ Nordic lilt felt like cannon fire to my sensitive ears. A ringing came on just as I managed to sit up in my bed. Morwen, who had fallen asleep next to me, was gone. The entire room was in disarray. Platters upended, books unshelved, carpets pulled up.

“Aye, I’m here, I’m here…” I rubbed sleep from my eyes, wobbling from the bed around the dining table to the door to my chambers, which had been locked. Something was wrong. I slid the lock open and the twins, Farkas and Vilkas, nearly toppled into the room. Aela, the huntress of the Companions, stood behind them and watched them stumble as the weight of the doors was pulled away from them. I stared blankly at them, blinking from the light of the torches in the hallway.

“What happened?” I rasped, steadying myself on Farkas’ meaty shoulder. There were no windows down here, so I had no idea what the time was.

“You’ve been down here for over a day, Tilma said you returned a couple nights ago with…er, a guest, and when we hadn’t seen you the next morning, well…” Vilkas trailed off as he looked over my shoulder at the disaster in my quarters, and he continued with an awkward shrug.

“We figured you were busy,” Aela crossed her arms, finishing Vilkas’ thought.

“Busy? No, nothing…where’s Mor… is she with…w…” my head spun and it took both of the twins to steady me.

“Should we fetch Danica?” Farkas turned to the huntress, who was now stepping over my flopping ankles and into my chambers. She inspected the scene with small, hawk-like blue eyes, before narrowing in on something near the bed.

“This is almost as bad as your first changing,” Vilkas chuckled as Aela leaned down, snatching something off of the ground gingerly. It was a small scrap of fabric, which she dropped as soon as she brought it to her nose.

“Hemlock,” she wrinkled her whole face at the smell, “there’s blood here, what did you do?”

I stood up straight, freeing myself from the twins’ grasp as I practically bounded over to the spot Aela was standing over. There was blood, and quite a bit of it. Something was very wrong.

“The woman that was here, did you see her?” I demanded of the three Companions, wheeling to face them. “Raven hair, scar on her cheek?”

The twins shook their head.

“I have to go,” I scrambled to pick up a fresh pair of trousers, then a tunic, and I held a pack in my off hand and scooped anything within reach into it with the other.

“Slow down, what’s happened?” Vilkas blocked the way to the door, and I nearly upended him trying to squeeze by.

“Morwen, someone’s taken her, I have to find-”

“Morwen…as in Lady Nox? The Dragonborn? She was here?” Farkas’ usual blank expression was replaced with wonder as I plucked a loaf of bread off of the platter Tilma had left outside of my chamber door and shoved it into my pack.

“Obviously, skeever-brain,” Aela snapped. She craned her neck to look at me past Vilkas and Farkas’ stunned figures as they watched me nearly barrel down the hallway.

“Where are you going?” she called up to me, and I realized I had no idea. She had plucked my swords off of their rack and held them out to me. I backtracked, and took the scabbards from her outstretched hands, and went to head up the stairs and out into the city. Aela cleared her throat, and I spun around again.

“Your bow,” she offered, casually stringing it with a swift motion from steady calf to strong hand. She handed it to me, and the quiver it sat with, and I nodded to her. I must have looked unwell, because she furrowed her brow in return.

“I’ll be back, soon, I’m not sure when, I’ll-uh, I’ll send word-” I called back to her manically as I jogged up the stairs into the main hall. The huntress was a harsh woman, and it reminded me of what Morwen said about those who wanted to do the work; Aela had the demeanor of a Harbinger. Not me, and not the twins either. I considered passing the mantle off to her as I sprinted out of the hall and into Jorrvaskr’s courtyard. I focused, slowing my breathing for a moment after I secured my weapons to my back. I could smell her, faintly, a scent like moss and spices. A footprint in the garden sunk a little too far into the dirt just at the edge of the flower bed; someone was carrying more weight than just their own. I spotted it, dirt tracked down the stairs and around a corner towards the lower districts. I followed the trail, honing in on the set of muddy prints that trailed off once the filthy streets of the market district opened up to me. I looked around, spotting a patch of blood on a wooden scaffold next to a market stall. I rubbed it with my finger, it was fresh but not wet. Her scent wasn’t on the wind, but it was still present on the ground where the attacker stepped. I followed it out of the city, heading towards Skyrim’s wilds.

Two days passed, and I had barely slept or eaten. I hit a dead end once I made it to the Labyrinthian, an ancient ruin set into the mountain range that separated Hjaalmarch and Whiterun holds. Circling back, I picked up the trail again Northeast of a burial cairn Morwen and I had explored a year prior, following it through Cold Rock Pass and West towards Morthal. When I arrived in the marshy town, no one had seen a wink of her. I headed east again to Stonehills, and the trail seemed to end as something covered its tracks through the snow. Shivering and unprepared in the cold in only a light cloak, I followed the faint line of disturbed snow drifts before the wind took it away, hitting heavy marshland before I was able to pick the trail back up. I decided to rest, and in between mouthfuls of stale bread, my eyes fluttered and sleep intruded on my task. I had been leaning up against a tree while I rested my legs, and it seems as if I only closed and then opened my eyes before night had fallen again. How many hours had gone by?

I realized quickly that I wasn’t alone, as I heard the spongy moss that made up most of the ground cover squelch about ten feet behind me. No heavy breathing or clinking of armor, someone who knew what they were doing. I sat still, waiting for my chance to catch them by surprise, when the familiar scent of some earthy perfume was carried over by the wind. It could have been a trick, but I whipped around regardless, to see Morwen crouching behind a shrub within arms reach of me, her eyes feral and her face covered in blood, knife at the ready.

“Kai?” she breathed, her hands quivering as she lowered her weapon.

“Morwen,” I scrambled to my feet, abandoning the chunk of bread that was still in my hand and colliding with her body hungrily. I pulled her into my chest, feeling her exhale and inhale like a blown horse as her arms crept around my waist. I brushed her blood-soaked hair from her face, cupping it with two hands as she pulled away from me. I inspected her for wounds. One on her forehead, another on her bare shoulder, both about two days old. The dress she had been wearing when she was with me at Jorrvaskr was ruined, its length ripped off at the shins and the sleeves tattered and covered in brambles. She was barefoot, and her legs were soaked in mud, plastering her leg hair to her skin. Her angry eyes pierced the humid air as she looked up at me wordlessly, still breathing heavy into the space between us.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” I fussed over the wound just above her brow. It was deep, and it blossomed with new blood, “what happened to you?”

“The Dark Brotherhood,” she responded, raising an eyebrow at my manic expression, “what on Nirn happened to you?”

“They must have slipped me something, I woke up a day later with a splitting headache and you were gone. I’m… I’m so sorry, I should have been there, I should have-”

She chuckled, stopping my babbling in its tracks. She looked a bit mad, but its hard not to when your skin is stained crimson. There was too much to be all her blood.

“They’ve recruited me,” she said finally through a final giggle, placing her hand over mine. Her nails were all broken and stained with blood and dirt. “They want me to join their ranks.”

I paused for a moment, considering the implications of this. The most sought-after woman in the entire country, a master thief and accomplished spellsword, working for a lowly band of killers with a sullied reputation and a dying brand. The only thing they have left to their name is their tenants, and it nearly resembled a cult. Not the usual business she brokered, but I couldn’t say that I was surprised. Her sharp smile had always been that of a killer, not a peacemaker.

“I don’t expect you to be pleased,” she commented on my crumpled face. The sounds of nocturnal creatures drifting up from the nearby swamps nearly drowned her out.

“If this is your path, I have no right nor intention to pass judgement,” I said finally, tasting the words as they left my mouth. I felt something deep within the reaches of my chest, a fire that she had put there many months ago. She didn’t expect this response, I gathered from her expression. The Dragonborn raised her eyebrow again not long after she had dropped it, her scar glistening in the light of the two moons above as she let silence settle between us. I cleared my throat.

“Let’s uh, let’s get you cleaned up,” I didn’t plan on asking her what she had done to impress the notoriously picky Brotherhood, and I think she was grateful. Solitude was closest, and it was late enough that we could probably slip through most of the city without arousing too much suspicion. I swung my cloak over her shoulders, watching the full moons rise high above us, crimson as was fitting for the red and bloody baptism of Morwen Nox. There was something charming about her bloody hands and wicked grin. Alluring as it was frightening. Secunda and Masser stared back at us, watchful and unblinking as the eyes of Lorkhan, witnesses to the bloodshed ahead.


	25. Tooth and Claw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morwen and Kaidan regroup with Lucien at Morwen's new property, Proudspire Manor. Kaidan wants to do something nice for the Dragonborn, who is her usual level of playful and mysterious despite being kidnapped and subsequently recruited by a vicious group of assassins. The pair makes for Shadowgreen Cavern, at Kaidan's request.

Lucien greeted us at the door of Proudspire Manor with a groggy smile about an hour after we arrived at the docks, having woken him with my incessant banging of the iron knocker until he appeared. The inky night settled thick over the foggy streets of Solitude, and it was easy to sneak the dripping wet Dragonborn through side streets and up towards the Spire. The Blue Palace’s stark blue roof glittered in the starlight, and only the urgent need for healing drew Morwen’s hungry eyes away from it. I spent an hour pouring over an old tome of healing salves and poultices, and Morwen appeared from the bath just as I was satisfied with my work.

“I don’t need help,” she insisted as I set to work on the gash across her shoulder. I laughed softly, ignoring her pleas to be left alone.

“You won’t get me to leave, your grace,” I coated a bandage in a green, sludgy poultice, before slicking it onto her freshly-cleaned wound. It didn’t need stitches, or else she might have had my head.

“Could I at least critique your handiwork?” she cringed as I struggled to unroll the gauzy linen to prepare the outer bandage. She was blotting the cut on her brow, which had continued to bleed on and off.

“That one will need stitching,” I raised a brow as I snipped the length of bandage off of the roll and began to secure it. She hissed when I pressed a little too hard on the wound, tossing her hand at me lazily.

“Sorry,” I did mean it, but I was more consumed with the feeling of her skin under my hands as I worked. It was tempting to linger on it just a moment longer than I should. She tossed the bloody rag aside, pushing my hand away as she reached for the brush on her vanity table. I scoffed as she turned away from me, beginning to work the knots out of her lengthy black hair. Her eyes looked out into the skylight in her bedroom, an attic space with a slanted roof that was half glass, half handsome timber. Her bed was against one wall, and the decor was as fine as any other place she owned. This particular property dripped with elegance and fineries that I had never seen the likes of before. She had spared no expense, and her ambition showed in every candlestick and rug.

“You’re not angry with me now, are you?” I plucked a lock of hair away from her head, rolling it around my finger to poke at her nerves.

“I was hoping that if I ignore you, you’ll finally sleep,” she was right, and I was exhausted. My muscles screamed and my skin was plastered with dirt. A warm bath and a good night’s rest would work wonders on my poor mood, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her side again. I should have told her as much.

“I’ll bathe, and then come and sit by this door to make sure nothing…” I trailed off, and she wiggled her fingers at me as if to dismiss me. My heart jumped as a thought came to me. Let me stay with you, and I’ll keep you as safe as I can. There was nothing I wanted more in the world than to love her as much as she’d let me, but I settled for stealing a kiss to the apple of her cheek, pressing my lips on her freckled cheekbone swiftly, before leaving the room through the wooden double doors. I felt her eyes on me as I left.

I drew myself a bath, but not before taking myself in hand as soon as I was alone. My cock had been hard to rouse for the last couple of months, but now it seemed to want nothing more than to throb and jump at any hint of stimulus. I came harder than I expected, legs wobbling and teeth chomped down on my tongue to stop from groaning loud enough for the others to hear. Once I had cleaned up, I slipped into the hot water and let my thoughts roam as I washed. I scrubbed the swamp from my hair and nails, daydreaming of Morwen and her strong curves. She was more a woman now than she ever was, the girlish angles now smoothed completely and the once rounded cheeks now lacking baby fat. I realized as I patted myself dry that I wanted to do something for her, to grant her a smile after her ordeal with the Brotherhood. I was asleep by the time my head hit the silken pillow in the guest quarters, but when I woke, the idea came to me.

I headed down to the courier’s office first thing in the morning, with a messy letter to Aela and instructions for the courier. I sent for the gear I left behind, and the horses, and informed the huntress that I intended to be away for some time. I had hoped to find my scrimshaw blade within the clinking contents of my pack, but it seems I had forgotten it. I did find the most important thing, tucked into an inside pocket: the toe bone of a dragon we had brought down some months ago. I gathered some bones for Lucien’s research, but kept one back for myself. I knew that inspiration would come to me, and so it had.

I spent a handful of septims on a new scrimshaw at a small general store within the lower rung of the city, along with a leather cording from the tanner’s and a pinch of delicate stones from the jeweler’s. After a few hours of sitting in a public garden a handful of blocks away from Proudspire, watching the sun climb into the sky and begin to fall as the day passed, a talisman carved from the ancient bone sat proudly in my hand. It was a small circle, with a hole in the center and wispy, rough opals set into four points, one for each cardinal direction. It didn’t take long for Morwen to find me trying to sneak back into the manor, and she nearly bounded down the stairs when I closed the front door with a creak. I was holding a small sack that contained the talisman, and her sharp eyes snapped to it before I could hide it behind my back.

“Where have you been?” she larked, trying to lean around me as I attempted to hide the bundle. She then raised an eyebrow, “what have you got?”

“None of your business,” I teased, lifting my arm up high above where she couldn’t reach as she tried to lunge for it. She collided with my torso instead.

“That’s not nice.”

“Well, being nosy isn’t very ladylike.”

I looked down at her, smirking, before I noticed a new charm around her neck, bouncing around her delicate collarbones. I dropped my arm slightly as I looked, and recognized it after a moment of squinting. The gentle, sloping everlasting knot of Mother Mara glinted in the late afternoon sun, a brilliant copper color complimenting her olive skin.

“What have you got?” I repeated her words, slipping the bundle into my pocket as I rounded on her. She blushed in the sunlight coming from the manor’s bay window, weaving back around the various armchairs that were littered around the sitting room of the manor’s main floor. She wrapped her hand around the necklace, looking down towards the floor instead of at me.

“Now who’s being nosy?” she sneered playfully, checking behind her before collapsing dramatically onto the leather sofa up against the wall. Something in her eyes as she crossed one leg over the other was anticipatory, even a little desperate. Her childish grin was undercut with mischief as she began to bounce her leg, smug in that she fancied the chase. I was more than happy to give it to her.

“Well, I thought I’d get something nice for you, but seeing as you’re so attached to your other jewels, I’ll just have to-”

“What, no! What did you get me?” she feigned pouting at me when I tossed a hand, chuckling as I ascended the stairs up to my room. I was playing to her dependable vanity, as steadfast a trait as her stubbornness. She would have made to follow me, were it not for Lucien emerging from the study, unknowingly blocking her path to pester me some more. Their conversation was reduced to a low buzzing as I closed the door to the guest’s quarters, plopping the talisman down on the oaken nightstand next to the bed. I was restless, changing my tunic twice and combing through my hair with my fingers until it shone. In the tarnished silver mirror set up against the wall near the dresser, I saw a frightened child instead of a grown man. I rehearsed what I would say to her in my head all day. There was a grotto not far out of the city that Brynjar used to take me to as a lad, I wanted to take her there. I’d show her the endless blue pools that littered the cavern, and the trees that all bent towards the sunlight through a small skylight in the mountainside. I could be brave for a moment, long enough to tell her what I felt. I won’t push, or rush her to make a decision. I would promise to never leave her side.

I found her in the study about an hour later, curled up with a massive book on her lap, idly taking notes with her black-feathered pen while her hand rested on a small side table next to her overstuffed armchair. Lucien sat at the desk, writing rapidly upon a fine piece of parchment with a large quill. I cleared my throat, and she and the scholar both looked up from their tasks.

“Kaidan! I trust your rest was…well, restful?” Lucien pointed to an empty chair politely, granting me an easy smile.

“Yes, uh,” Morwen blinked up at me as I stayed standing, my form awkwardly taking up the door frame. “Morwen, would you like to walk, er, with me?”

The tome resting on her thighs snapped closed with an echoing thump, and she gently placed her pen back in its well. In her usual fashion, she had already accepted my offer, but would draw it out for several minutes to appear the lamb. I wondered what ways I could touch her that would make her courtly demeanor melt away.

“Where are we walking to?” a fair question, and I gave her a coy smile in exchange. She resumed her chase, a little fox prodding a mountain lion.

“Fine, keep your secrets,” she made a show of returning the book to its rightful place on the handsome shelves. The small study was constructed of deep, richly stained wood and the usual smattering of chairs and tables littered with books, papers, and tools that I couldn’t even fathom the use of. There was a telescope sitting dutifully by the window that looked out onto the sky above the bay, and I remembered the view from the Thalmor Embassy’s gardens, and how similar her beauty was to the moons above and all their stars. “Don’t wait up, Lucien, I’ll speak to you tomorrow?”

“Right-o, do be safe!” Lucien chirped as Morwen joined me in the hallway. I gestured for her to lead the way, watching her dress pinch her curves and fall down over her arse in a perfect silhouette. After a few minutes of waiting for her to change clothes, we departed together and I guided her down the side streets of Solitude, eventually making it to the gates that lead directly down to the docks, instead of to the main road. We took the path along the beach, past the decommissioned lighthouse and up over the rocky hillside of the coast, cutting up a small path that cut the travel time down considerably. She wrapped her cloak around her form, shivering from the icy winds coming off the Sea of Ghosts. She didn’t ask many questions, and I was thankful for that. I felt that if I would open my mouth at all before it was time, things wouldn’t come out right. I checked every once and a while to see if she was still following me, and now under the setting sun, her face shone with its pinks and oranges as she looked at me expectantly. The hidden mouth of the grotto was just up ahead, and the coast was at our backs. The writhing patterns of granite veins and the deep, salty texture of the rocks made the mountainside look near black in the fading daylight.

“What is this place?”

“Somewhere Brynjar used to bring me, it…it’s something I’ve been wanting to show you for a while, just never had the chance.”

“Lead on, then,” her smile cut through the dusk, as sharp as ever. I put a hand on the broad stone that hung over the entrance to the cavern, swiping a thick layer of tangled moss and cobwebs out of the way of the small passage. She ducked inside, and I followed suit, leaving the whipping winds of Haafingar’s harsh coast behind us.


	26. By Any Other Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaidan and Morwen venture to Shadowgreen Cavern. Kaidan admits his feelings for The Dragonborn. An old enemy returns.

The locals called it Shadowgreen Cavern. I can’t remember when I first saw it, but I do remember every time after that. Brynjar and I spent weeks hiding out here at times, and other days would just be a short visit. He’d have me swipe sweetrolls from the market stall and jerky from the butcher’s shop, and we’d feast under the grand pine tree that reached desperately for the sunlight coming through the skylight above. He shared with me my first bottle of mead within these cavernous walls, said I was a man now, and I had earned it. I was a lad of sixteen when he passed, nearly ten years ago, but he seemed close now as Morwen stopped to take in the scene, her raven hair escaping a braid and creeping down to her hips. I watched her shoulders rise and fall with heavy breaths, narrow and hidden under a thick cloak. The path to the main cavern opened up from a cramped, rocky passage that fed onto a ledge with a small jump underneath it. Gleefully, Morwen looked back at me with fire in her eyes, stripping off her cloak and bounding down onto the soft soil below, abandoning her boots sometime in between.

“Careful, the spriggans here don’t like company!” I called, but she was already twenty paces ahead, following the soggy path down to the first pool of crystalline water that lapped playfully onto its gravel shore. The cavern contained a large plateau in the centre, and was surrounded by a distinct path to the top, no doubt carved out by glacial melts. It was as green as green could be, moss and other flora climbing up the dark stone like a blanketed garden. Blooms of different herbs happily swayed in the dregs of coastal winds coming from outside, and evergreens rooted in small ledges around the grotto, often surrounded by bushes and swaths of more foliage. I was expecting it to feel as wondrous as it had all those years ago, but something was missing. Some of the foliage had yellowed or browned, lifeless among the vivid array of wildflowers and crystal-clear mountain springs that sprouted from scars in the mountain’s inner face. Morwen seemed to notice me lost in thought at the mouth of the cavern, and beckoned me to her. She stood with her bare feet in the nearest shallow pool, the promises of moonlight from the early night glittering gently on the water’s surface.

“It’s breathtaking,” she said, palms open and facing downwards towards the pond.

“I’ve seen nearly every corner of Tamriel, your grace,” I started as I jumped down from the ledge. “Nothing compares to the wilds of Skyrim, she’s as beautiful as she is dangerous.”

A loaded silence, before she spoke again.

“Are you to become a poet now, Harbinger?” Morwen teased, eyes trained on mine with her usual intensity.

“Stranger things have happened.”

“So they have,” she agreed, wicked grin made of white marble splitting her lips in two.

Morwen’s eyes wandered around the cavern, taking in each mossy bluff and tangled vine, still smiling as I watched her gaze find the plateau in the middle of the space. It was only a moment before she dashed off again, heading for the worn path that wound up to the top of the plateau. 

“I wasn’t jokin’ about the Spriggans!” I hollered, but she already started up the slope, using protruding roots and stray rocks as her footholds as she pulled towards the last bit of sunlight coming through the crevice in the ceiling. I sighed, following her as she climbed to the very top of the rocky tower. When we reached the top, I found it to look just as it did when I was a lad; a pond of crystal clear water that twinkled like gemstones rippled contently around the roots of a massive pine tree at the very centre of the plateau. The tree, older and stronger than I ever recalled, stretched proudly towards what little sky was visible, its evergreen branches swaying in a gentle wind. Morwen’s eyes glittered as she looked on, only blinking when she spotted the same thing that I did - a dead Spriggan, a strange creature even for Skyrim’s ancient halls and groves. It was sprawled out on the muddy shore of the pond, its wooded belly hollow of its usual glowing root. Morwen’s smile quickly became an angry frown.

“How awful,” she nearly sobbed, thick lips parting as she knelt by the creature, the hem of her tunic dunking into the water.

“Can’t say I’m surprised, mages will do just about anything to advance their craft,” Morwen tossed a disapproving glance at me before I corrected myself. “Erm, no offense.”

“I think you’ve not seen the right kind of magic,” Morwen closed her eyes, only to open them when I questioned her.

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“If you’d just waited a moment,” she chided in response, eyes snapping shut again as her hands began to glow. Her entire presence hummed with the same energy that I felt when she had first saved my life, a radiant warmth cutting through the cold air like a blade. A burst of some invisible force erupted from the ground as a moment of pure sunlight from her magic touched everything it could reach, from the stunted trees to the yellowing moss. After that moment, the cavern was full of life again, green as green could be and rippling with the same visceral, low thrumming like a heartbeat that I remembered feeling here all those years ago. The Spriggan’s wickered corpse rotted away before my eyes, returning to the soil below it with barely a trace. Her healing had repaired the emptiness that I encountered upon stepping into the grotto. I must have looked gobsmacked, because Morwen’s face was plagued with uncertainty.

“You’re upset,” she concluded, dropping her arms to her side dejectedly.

“I- no, I’m just-”

“You are! I thought it would make you happy, I didn’t mean-”

“Morwen-”

“I just thought because-”

“It’s not that-

“I should have asked you, before I.. I’m so sorry-” she was nearly pleading, she turned away from me completely and had crossed her arms over her chest as if to protect herself from my disapproval.

“It’s beautiful, Morwen, it’s alright,” I spoke gently, closing the gap between us as she turned to look at me. Her purple-blue eyes glistened with rare tears as I stood with barely a breath between our bodies. “Thank you.”

Her cheeks were flushed, and she sniffled a bit as she relaxed her shoulders. 

“I thought I had lost you, Kai,” she whispered, voice just barely audible over the sound of the wind entering through the skylight above.

“And I you, until I saw you at the Summit. I felt that something was...well, it’s nothing-” I cut myself off, moving my gaze from her fine features to my boots as I fiddled with a small stone in the dirt.

“Nothing? What is going on with you? You’ve been distracted since we arrived in Solitude,” Morwen raised an eyebrow, and I only lasted a moment before her sharp expression convinced me, as per usual.

“I have something...for you. I made it with you in mind, and I only want you to take it if you feel the same… Right, here it goes.”

From my pocket, I pulled the small bundle containing the charm I had carved earlier that day. I cleared my throat and handed it to her, watching her hungrily inspect the package before pulling the strings from around it and unfolding the fabric. The necklace sat in her palm, glittering in the new moonlight from above. She said nothing, only inspected it slowly, turning it in her palm and watching the light dance in the stones. I inhaled deeply, and the words began to flow out of me before I could stop them.

“I’ve been thinking about you, and, er, how much you mean to me, um…” I exhaled, before beginning again as her eyes began to dig into mine. “I’m not going to say any of this right, it’s just- I’ve never been here before…”

“Kai…”

“No, wait. I’ve been meaning to tell you for...for a long time. I dunno when it started, or how I haven’t blurted this out before, but,” I inhaled once again, deeper this time, “I love you, Dragonborn. I have loved you, and I will love you.”

Morwen’s eyes widened, her brow raised and her heartbeat was visible at the crook of her neck. She took a moment to respond, not even trying to hide it as her cheeks turned nearly crimson.

“I...I don’t know what to say,” she breathed, chest rising and falling heavily, hands still cupping the carved necklace I had given her.

“You don’t have to say anything, I just wanted you to know, and...now you do.”

Morwen’s dark brows furrowed as she thought on this, and in the silence I could hear my pulse ripping through my body. I watched her come to a conclusion as her face settled into certainty.

“Close your eyes,” she demanded, playful tone returning to her words.

“What?”

“You heard me, you ponce, close your eyes!”

I did as I was told, but tried to peek nearly immediately to get under her skin. She responded by flicking my nose sharply. I squeezed my eyes shut, truly this time, before I felt her hand wrap around my fingers, her own calluses catching against mine. She pulled me forward, and then sideways, then came a sturdy pushing on my chest as she guided me to sit on the soft, gravelly dirt that surrounded the pond. I was about to question her as she pulled her hand away, but a sudden whisper of her scent and a soft thudding interrupted me. My heart pounded in my chest, and it seemed to stop working entirely when the feeling of her thighs straddling my lap made me jump.

“Open your eyes,” Morwen commanded, and I was happy to obey. In fact, I couldn’t remember a moment in my life when I had been happier than this. The only thing interrupting my view of her bare skin was her hair, now loose and falling down around her arms, and the charm I had made her, sitting proudly on her naked chest. Her breasts sat just under eye level, nipples erect in the crisp air of the cavern and goosebumps rippling along her skin. I had no chance to object, no moment to catch my breath as her lips collided with mine, bare chest pressing against my collarbones and her hands coming up to cup my face. I wasn’t shy this time as I brought my hands to her bare skin, finding her naked hips and sliding my palms up her sides, following plump curves hiding solid muscle. My cock was hard in seconds, and as she kissed me hungrily, I felt a hint of her hips bucking to straddle it better. She let a whimper escape her lips as I pulled mine away.

“Shall I take that as a good sign?” I asked breathlessly. Her laugh was as sweet as a song in response.

“It’s certainly not a bad one,” she cooed, wrapping her arms around my neck and brushing my nose with hers. I swallowed hard, trying not to feel too dizzy as I looked up at her.

“Kiss me again, and I might just believe you…”

The Dragonborn obliged, whining softly as I began to explore her curves, all the while accepting her kisses and nearly purring as she began to run her fingers through my hair. She quickly located the pin that held it in place and tugged it out so it fell in straight locks, down past my shoulders and onto my back. My hands found her tits first, and though I tried to be as gentle as I could, she yelped softly when I cupped one in my hand too firmly. I could feel the place in between her legs get warmer, and only with a particularly enthusiastic wiggle of her hips, I noticed how wet she already was. Her body shook and she started to moan as I moved my hips with hers, feeling the nub at the top of her sex swell in between the lips that just barely hid it. My manhood wept from inside my trousers, and I pulled away from her with a groan.

“Morwen, can I...uh…”

She looked down at me, eyes on fire and her lips flushed. She tilted her head slightly, before realization hit her and a new wave of redness came to her cheeks. She backed up a bit on my lap and I quickly undid the laces of my trousers, freeing my cock with a sigh of relief. It throbbed and jumped at the proximity to her, and she looked at it with a shy curiosity. Silence fell between us, and I worried I had done the wrong thing. Her wetness had soaked through my breeches, and she hadn’t stopped panting since pulling away from me. I spoke first.

“It’s your choice. We can stop, if you like.”

“No, I don’t want to stop, it’s just…” she looked up at me, then back down at my lap.

“I’m not your first, am I?” I asked finally, more surprised than I meant to let on. Morwen looked away. I was taken aback, but the jealous part of me was almost relieved. She had plenty of women before, but that was a different kind of love. Softer and not meant for my eyes or my thoughts. I knew the feeling well, and something inside of me knew she would understand.

“It’s alright, love, I won’t hurt you.”

“I know you won’t, just, slowly, please?”

I nodded, and gently placed my hands back on her hips as she climbed towards my lap again, thighs quivering and eyes wide. Instead of pulling her close, I explored the ridges of her hipbones, kissing her softly as my fingers trailed from her navel, avoiding the tufts of hair right above her sex and instead drawing a line towards the inside of her thighs. She shuddered, and I pulled my hand away for a moment to let her catch her breath. Her lips betrayed a single moan, low and pleading as I drifted across her belly and drew another line a little closer to her lips on the other side. She looked more comfortable with this; I migrated from her mouth to kiss her sharp jawline, then her neck, stopping when she whimpered to press harder onto her skin, chancing a touch near her nub as I switched sides again. She sang sweetly into my ear, her moans mingling with the whistling of some distant wind. I was caught off-guard when she placed a cold hand on my abdomen to balance herself, before wrapping her fingers gently around the girth of my cock. I moaned loudly, nearly howling as she moved her grip from the middle of the shaft up to the ridge around the head, squeezing gently as the width of it tapered off before sliding back down to the base. I became aware of how hard I was breathing, and how desperate her movements were getting. I wouldn’t let her go without for a day in her life, if she would have me.

“Kai..oh!” Her gasp was sharp but gleeful as she moved her body further onto my lap.

My middle finger slid in between her folds, grazing the velvety, button-like part of her sex; I brought my finger back towards me to rub it again, gently drawing circles around it as it swelled at my touch. The sounds from her lips were undeniable now as they began to echo around the cavernous walls, her hips shivering in anticipation and her tits bouncing in my face as she moved. Her hand moved deliberately now around my cock, finding more confidence with each stroke. I instructed her to slow down when I felt my release approaching, and her movements became tantalizing. She drew her index finger and thumb over the head, spreading the wetness there around the tip slowly. I groaned, saying something incomprehensible as I slipped my finger closer to her entrance. She was so unbelievably wet, my hand and my lap were both nearly soaked.

“Please,” she begged, angling her entrance towards my hand. I obeyed, meaning to go slow at first but to my surprise, she mounted it with one swift movement. The cry she let out was like liquid gold, sweet and crisp like a birdsong. She let go of my manhood, firmly planting her hands on my chest as her hips glided along my finger with strong, desperate strokes. I grabbed her arse with the other hand, pushing and pulling her along the length of my hand as her release seemed to approach. Her walls tightened, but her cries continued to mount even as I began to rub the bundle of nerves with my thumb.

“Kai…” her whisper was almost inaudible, but she moaned my name. Once, then twice, wantonly reaching for my lips with hers and whimpering into my mouth as I kissed her back. She dismounted my hand as swiftly as she had gotten on, wasting no time in angling my cock in between her folds, letting the head graze past the entrance as her pleasure mounted. I groaned loudly, cupping her backside with both hands as she rode me shamelessly, panting and moaning like an animal in heat. I felt my release approach, and hers as well as her moans filled the entire grotto. I met Morwen’s intense gaze, sweat dripping from her forehead and lips barely an inch from mine.

“Kai...” she gasped softly, thighs squeezing mine, “oh...oh!”

Release found us both. I howled as my seed spilled onto my stomach, and she coated my cock in her own wetness as she shuddered and bucked rhythmically. I moved my hands to her lower back, grazing her skin with a calloused thumb. Her eyes closed and her body relaxed, and a renewed, soft smile graced her lips when I kissed the very tip of her nose. For a moment, we were the only two people in the whole of Nirn. 

A twig snapped some fifty feet away, its echo bounced off of the grand stone walls. Morwen’s eyes snapped open, body tensing and smile falling quickly. We weren’t alone. We both stayed still as stone, hoping to hear another clue as to who might have found their way in. The answer came to us quickly enough.

“Up there! Quickly! The exit is blocked, there’s nowhere for them to go,” I would recognize that voice anywhere. Lady Elenwen of the Thalmor Embassy had found us, and she had us cornered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heya!! i'm back-ish! still busy with modding but i could never forget my bestest boye! things r FINALLY nastie i hope u enjoy!!


	27. Wickedness and Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Elenwen attempts to corner Kaidan and the Dragonborn. Morwen makes a display of wicked, powerful magic to save their lives. Skyrim's civil war encroaches upon the horizon.

I wasn’t proud of it. The moment we both recognized Lady Elenwen’s voice, I knew that one of us would die. She couldn’t touch me in any other hold but Haafingar, and she waited until we were out of the city proper to kill us both. Kaidan said nothing, opting instead to bring his lips to mine, desperate and silent, before watching me disappear into thin air. Nocturnal’s gifts were for relieving the good people of Skyrim of their valuables, slinking soundlessly into the night with pockets full of coin. Not for killing, and certainly not like this.

Elenwen’s agents had us surrounded, but after I had silently scaled the bluff down to the soft dirt below, I lifted a pebble from the shore of a reflecting pool some twenty feet away using magic, careful to keep the incantation silent, before dropping it into the water with a soft plop. The agents whipped their proud, golden blonde heads to the sound, before snapping around again when I shifted a branch to their right, closer to the exit.

“What was that?” one agent called to her companion, and I didn’t wait for a response before slamming another stone into the rocky wall of the cavern, causing a large cracking sound to echo through the air. I tried to remember whether Kaidan had even brought his sword.

“Over there, they must be using magic to cloak themselves!” the third agent called, a man with an urgent voice tinted with a foreign accent. My mind was racing. Once the agents were herded into one area, I could easily take them out. But that would allow for Elenwen to escape. I could use a Thu’um, but the chances that I would be able to hit the ambassadress with even a conjured arrow once she heard it were extremely slim. I could sneak past her lackeys, but I had no way of knowing if Kaidan would be able to defend himself. If he’s unarmed, he doesn’t know any magic to hold them off. There was one more option, but it required something that Kaidan would never forgive me for. I needed to tell him.

I dropped to my belly, low to the wet ground. Nocturnal’s magic cloaked me from being seen as I focused my magicka elsewhere, towards the collection of Altmer now scouring the reflecting pools and its surrounding bushes for any sign of us trying to escape unseen. I couldn’t even accomplish this kind of magic I was considering during my studies, let alone under threat of capture at the hands of the Thalmor, naked as the day I was born. I prayed to every god I could think of that Kaidan would trust me once he heard my voice. The spell would kill him if he didn’t.

“There’s nothing here, just a pair of boots and a cloak,” an agent remarked as they finished searching the area where they heard the noise. Elenwen’s scoff was audible even from a distance, before she hopped down from the mouth of the cave and started for the plateau. The justiciars all wore the same black and gold uniform, but Elenwen wore a more ornate version of their plain robes; she glimmered in the moonlight, and I saw a flash of what must have been an enchantment over her garb. In her off hand, a globe made of sparks sizzled and flickered at the ready. In her dominant hand, an unsheathed sabre that cut through the air as she moved. Elven make, sharper than any weapon made by man. It too was golden, and as polished as the rest of her. I gathered my intended spell in my hands, knowing it would only be enough to subdue them. Such is the superior breeding of Mer.

“If you idiots won’t stop bumbling around, I’ll have to find them myself. Block the door, I’m going up there.”

The justiciars did as they were told as Elenwen crept gracefully towards the winding path up the plateau, and I took my chance. Rising to my feet, I used the spare magicka I had left to focus on Kaidan, hoping my words would find him in a way that the Thalmor wouldn’t hear.

“Hold your breath,” my magic whispered to him, before the spell I had nocked ripped the air from the cavern with a brief roar. The space above and around our heads was now silent, devoid of wind or even stillness. The justiciars were quick to gasp for air, but there was none, and their proud faces began to bruise. Elenwen slammed her hands up to her throat, no sound escaping as she suffocated. That was as long as I could hold the effect. I released, my fists uncurling and magicka flooding back to me like a loyal hound. I quickly tapped into it again, summoning a wicked-looking dagger for each hand and dropping the shadowcloak as I charged for the puddle of agents, most of them having fallen to their knees and were now coughing and vomiting onto the dirt. They had no time to react.

Stark naked, I collided with them blade-first. I opened one throat onto the soil, stabbed into another’s abdomen and twisted the ghostly blade before removing it swiftly and using the momentum to relieve a third of their dominant hand in one clean swipe. He clutched his handless wrist as he collapsed, blood oozing out at a rate he wouldn’t be able to stop in time. I caught a handful of fire to the shoulder as the fourth agent, the only one who hadn’t fallen to the ground, lashed out at me bravely. I brought my conjured dagger across his pretty face, slicing his pointed ear clean off and following up with my left blade to open up the vein on the side of his neck. Elven blood coated my chest as I finished off the last two, lacerating one’s thigh and stabbing the last through the ribs on her left side. Her almond eyes fluttered slightly, as gold as her hair and deep as an ocean, as her life left her. Elenwen was the only one left, and I could feel her approaching behind me as she raised a hand to fire at me.

Sparks hit me square in the chest as I watched her approach, enchanted by the purpleish-green tone of her face as she still gasped for the air that I returned to the cavern. Weapon ready in one hand, and another spell at the ready in another. I dodged the first swing, her silvery blonde hair escaping wildly out of her neat bun and her eyes full of rage. She managed to nick the upper part of my bicep as I dashed out of her range, blood welling from it immediately and mingling with the blood of her agents that coated my bare skin. I hissed, swinging both daggers at her chest only to have them glide along her enchanted robe. I cussed, before flinging my leg forward to collide with her at the knees, successfully knocking her off balance before sending my right dagger towards her neck. She parried, the sabre clanging like a birdsong upon contact with my magic. I caught her by the middle with the left blade, breaching the enchantment and feeling it sink into her abdomen with a horrifying squelch. She didn’t give up even as I pulled the knife from her gut, Altmer blood spilling from her and onto the dirt. I tripped on a small bush behind me as our dance brought us closer to the reflecting pool I had stood in when we arrived. Blood seeped from my skin into to the water as I splashed backwards, trying to regain my balance. Elenwen took advantage of this, slicing wildly into the air to keep me from leaning forwards. I lost balance, collapsing into the pool. Water rose up on either side of me, blinding me temporarily as I struggled to keep my blades in hand. 

I expected the cool, tingling pain of a flawless blade being plunged into my stomach at any moment, or the brief second of consciousness before my head left my shoulders. Neither of those things came. Instead, the ringing in my ears subsided just in time to hear the distinct crack of a snapping neck, and the thump of Elenwen’s body being tossed aside. Kaidan, shirtless and covered in sweat, a bruise blossoming on his neck, stood over me with fire in his eyes. I jumped before I realized it was him, desperately trying to scramble to my feet. Tears began to spill down his face as he reached for me, strong hands finding my trembling shoulders and scooping me from the shallow pool effortlessly. He bit down on his sobs, pulling me up to him not unlike a child would a disgruntled house cat. My feet left the ground behind as Kaidan wrapped his arms around my form, a mix of blood and water printing itself from my skin to his. He held me for an eternity, pressing my head to his chest where his heart was beating wildly under the skin.

“I heard you,” he whispered, “ I swear it was you.”

I couldn’t respond, and when he put me down, I chanced a look at his face. He was definitely injured by my magic, his neck was purple and his eyes looked as if he had been punched. He flinched when I reached for his cheek, and I let my hand fall away from his wounded glare.

“I’m sorry, Kai…I-”

“You’re dangerous, Morwen, I knew this from the start.”

“You’re still here.”

“That I am,” his voice trembled slightly. He looked away only to gaze upon the carnage that I had wrought.

“They would have tortured you, or worse…” I felt the need to justify my actions. I wasn’t sure if he agreed or not.

“They wouldn’t have found us if I hadn’t….” he sighed, before looking back at me. “I’m sorry that I’ve gotten you tangled up in this.”

I laughed at this, harshly. It sounded like a bark, before it turned into a cough.

“This isn’t just about you, Kai,” I bit down on a sob as the pain from the gash on my shoulder started to flood in. “Even Solitude aches, and soon they’ll bleed her dry.”

I looked down at Elenwen’s body, her silver hair a stringy, bloody mess around her still face. My ribcage began to shake as the cold air settled onto my skin.

“We could run, let them have Skyrim. By the nine, I’ll even leave my sword behind just to quell them. They won’t chase us, we could take to the seas-”

“I’m not running away-”

“Morwen, if they knew you were here, that you did this-”

“I’m going to war,” I interrupted. Kaidan fell silent, catching his breath as I backed away. Kneeling down, I tore a lock of Elenwen’s hair from her scalp. He shook his head, loose hair flying around his angry face.

“You said it yourself, the war is pointless on both sides. You agreed-”

“I agreed with you, yes. I have to pick a side, or else this doesn’t go away-”

“And, what, you think that pushing the Empire out of Skyrim will keep you safe?”

“I am not running away.”

Kaidan sighed, his eyes studying the conviction on my face, before nodding solemnly.

“To war it is, then.”


	28. The Razor of the Reach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morwen and Kaidan have returned to Lost Valley after months of relentless scheming and intrigue, as Skyrim's civil war begins to approach a conclusion. The Emperor lies dead, and the Dragonborn has her sights set higher than ever. The pair find a quiet moment, before the Forsworn make a push for Markarth.

Three months was all it took. The Dragonborn couldn’t publicly join the war effort on either side, but that didn’t stop her from bloodying her hands, as she always did. The Emperor, Titus Mede II, had been assassinated. Skyrim, as well as most other provinces, plunged into utter chaos.

“...each day, the Empire tightens her grip on the Reach. We must act now-”

“I’ll hear none of it, Morwena, you’ve done enough damage! Your vacant, selfish excuse for strategy cost us valuable time-”

“At least it hasn’t cost the lives of your people, don’t you care about that?!” Morwen’s shriek nearly splintered the wooden map table in two. Inside Madanach’s war tent, tempers from all sides caused the air to lay thick with humidity and spite. Madanach, thinner and angrier, sat dejectedly on a small throne made of gnarled wood, its branches creating a halo of claw-like spindles around his white mane. Morwen paced the table opposite him, practically smoking at the ears under the old king’s gaze. Rhori and his younger sister, Síne, sat on the sidelines, watching with identical raised eyebrows as the Dragonborn jabbed a finger at the map between her and her opponent. She would wear the old haggard down eventually, one way or another.

“Markarth is in the hands of the Silver-blood family now, thanks to your efforts! Solitude is the last bastion against the Stormcloaks, and Ulfric has all but sodomized Whiterun and every bloody trade route that goes in or out of that city! Is this your idea of victory?”

“I never said anything about victory, you decrepit hound, I said-”

“You have said many things, Brennachi! While your mouth moved one way, your blade moved another!”

“ENOUGH!” I roared just as Morwen’s eyes flicked up to glare daggers at the old Breton. I feared that she’d hurdle over the table and spill his blood if he prodded her any further. “Both of you, enough.”

Morwen’s intense eyes met mine for the first time since we arrived back in the Valley. Thick brows gave way to encrusted blues set into her carved cheeks, sporting a handful of new scars that shone in the torchlight. Across her bare chest, the scar born of dragon’s fire gleamed menacingly, a reminder of her seniority, however precarious it might be.

“And what would you say to this, oldling? Does your experience as...former Harbinger provide you with some hidden insight?”

“Watch your mouth,” Morwen growled, upper lip curling as she returned her hateful stare to Madanach. 

“I won’t claim to be an expert on warfare, no,” I cleared my throat, briefly catching Rhori’s eye as I stepped forward from my side of the audience, uncrossing my arms and placing myself between Madanach and a furious Morwen.

“What I do know is that you’re a bloody fool, and you’ll sooner see Skyrim die than let your own blood feed her soil. You act like the Nords you condemn so heavily - it’s cowardly, is what it is.”

“We may yet agree on something, outsider,” Rhori’s rippling voice dripped low from his tattooed lips, coaxing a snort from his younger sister, who shifted her weight and tossed a stray red curl from her thin face. She had become a witchblade, no doubt under Morwen’s guidance, since I had last seen her after the gala in Solitude, and now sported a fitting tattoo of a dragon’s claw across her pretty cheek. Two wicked-looking daggers that nearly matched Morwen’s sat on the girls hips, sheathed in patchwork leather.

“It is no secret that you disagree with me, Muirachi, just as your parents have before,” Madanach adjusted his posture, shrinking into his age as his body creaked. “I assume there are others who agree with you, in turn?”

“We figured we’d ask you nicely, first,” Morwen’s quick wit cut through the hazy air of the tent, sarcastic tone failing to disguise a very clear threat.

“I am in no position to defend what you would intend to take from me, should I fight you further on this. Markarth will be yours, Morwena, and gods damn you for it.”

Whether Madanach liked it or not, the negotiations were over; the Dragonborn had what she wanted. Over the past handful of months, her sights had been set on Markarth for reasons I’ve come to understand, even sympathize with. Whether I truly support them doesn’t matter. Regain Markarth, hand it over to someone who can rule it properly. Rhori’s older sister, Sorcha, is the most likely candidate; she was older and had already produced enough heirs to keep the city steady. Securing every inch of land bordering Haafingar and Falkreath, returning it to the native peoples of the Reach, means that she controls the hearts and the coffers of the hold. Falkreath would be forced to return stolen land to her people, as would Solitude. With no Emperor to declare her claims unlawful, the Reach would be free at last. During long nights at Elysium Estate, or in the now-extensively restored libraries of Sky Haven Temple under the hospitality of our scholar friend, Esbern, Morwen discussed her plans at length. Her worries and fears, I shared, and her occasional touch or kiss on my cheek was just enough to satiate my feelings for her. She was still a pain in my arse.

“You can’t be in here-” the priestess barked at me as soon as I pushed the heavy, woven curtains of the Dibellan Temple’s doorway aside. It was a hidden part of the city, one frequented less often than the Daedric places of worship. It was still frequented nonetheless. Midnight had come and gone by the time I had tracked Morwen here, after she triumphantly stomped out of Madanach’s council tent.

“I don’t very well give a damn, with all due respect,” I interrupted, looking down harshly at the priestess from at least a head above her. “Where is she?”

The priestess shyly pointed further into the temple, fearful eyes peering out from under an ironic but beautifully embroidered veil of modesty. It was a simple space, containing one long room separated into segments with heavy, silken curtains dyed in soft oranges and dainty pinks. Pools of clear blue water sparkled in basins carved from marble, and a mural depicting various Dibellan imagery stretched across the carved stone walls. Stylized paintings of naked women in lewd poses watched me as I proceeded further into the temple, only after the frightened priestess insisted I remove my boots. My bare feet padded through the ankle-deep wading pools that made up the floor of the temple, soaking the ankles of my trousers much to my annoyance.

“You’ve gotten worse at the whole sneaking thing, somehow…” Morwen’s voice drifted out from behind the second set of silk curtains before I even pulled them aside.

I pulled the drapes closed behind me as I entered the room. A pool of sparkling water sat on a raised platform in the middle of the space, its basin embossed with gold and the very bottom tiled with a sort of blue mosaic pattern. Morwen, having changed into a loose robe that tied around the waist, was draped dramatically on the steps leading up to the basin, head resting on her forearm as she idly dunked her fingers into the water, raven hair loose and blanketing her back. On the walls were more depictions of naked figures, many with their legs spread or their bodies painted with sunsets or decorative swirls. A small hoard of candles were flickering away on almost every available surface, bathing the room and the Dragonborn in orange light. I cleared my throat.

“You still owe me a lesson, you know.”

Morwen shifted to look up at me, scoffing at my attempt at humor. The circles under her eyes were darker than they usually were, and her smile was quicker to fade. I approached her slowly, eventually sinking down next to her on the carved stone steps. She exhaled slowly.

“What’s got you, darling?” my voice bounced off of the stone walls, and as I inhaled, a waft of incense entered my lungs. It smelled like jasmine and pine.

“You haven’t called me that in ages,” she rolled her eyes, before returning her focus to the fingers she was dragging through the water. Magic seemed to ripple out at her touch, causing a glimmer on the surface.

“Well, if you don’t like it…”

“That’s not what I said.”

“I had you figured as a romantic from the start, you know,” I joked, pairing the half-truth with a smile as she sunk back down to sulk some more, “though if I had known you were going to be such a bore, I wouldn’t have bothered at all.” That part was a complete lie, but I enjoyed baiting her as much as she enjoyed playfully arguing in return.

“I doubt that, you oaf,” Morwen deflected, failing to hide the blush rising on her cheeks. “I don’t think you had anything figured back then.”

“Oh hoh, is that so?”

“It is,” her tone was harsh but her lips began to curl into a smirk. I’d be damned if this woman wasn’t proud as she is witty. She paused for a moment, before speaking again.  
“I’m afraid,” she muttered, almost bitterly, “I’m afraid of what happens if I fail.”

“So am I.”

Her eyes wandered up from her vacant musing, starting at my waist and traveling towards the open neck of my tunic, then up my neck and pausing at my lips. I tightened my jaw instinctively as her scent hit me, like fresh herbs and something metallic.

“You’re supposed to be supportive,” she whined softly, eyes finally flicking up to mine. In the candlelight, the purples of her irises were more intense.

“I do support you,” I let my hand wander towards hers. She didn’t pull away as my fingers grazed her wrist. “But I am a tad biased, seeing as it’s my arse you’d be saving as well as everyone else’s.”

“I suppose I could be bothered, you do make such dreadful company, though…” Her hand slipped out from under mine, before returning to wrap her fingers around the dorsal of my hand. Her fingers were like ice, so much so that I could feel my own body heat radiating out to her.

“Is that your way of telling me you care about me, or shall I infer it from all of the daggers you’ve been glaring at me with?” I joked as my blood began to rip from my chest and into other extremities. She answered with a razor-sharp smile.

“What a mortifying position you’ve put me in, wee hunter,” her chest rose and fell dramatically. I didn’t bother hiding the glance I stole at the shape of her breasts through the silk. “I’m afraid I’ll have to off myself, if the alternative is telling you how fond of you I am.”

“Are you flirting with me, Dragonborn?”

“I thought I’d give it a go,” Morwen giggled, the sound echoing sweetly off of the rough ceiling and decorated walls. Her lips fell into a pout, daring me to meet them. “If you don’t like it…”

“That’s not what I said.”

Morwen gracefully lunged forward, pressing her lips to mine almost desperately as she caught my chest with her off hand to balance herself. I could have sworn that she swallowed a sob, but I didn’t react to it, instead bringing my hands to her waist as the space between our bodies became smaller. I stroked the curve of her ribs with my thumbs, kissing her slowly as she melted into me. I hadn’t felt her this close, tasted her lips or even held her to me since that night in Shadowgreen Cavern. The memory of finding pleasure with her was the only thing that made the months of turmoil afterwards bearable; how fitting it should find us again under the eyes of Dibella herself. I groaned involuntarily as her legs grazed mine.

“I have missed you,” I panted as her kisses came faster now, inhaling sharply as her teeth grazed my lip.

“I never would have guessed,” she jested through heavy breaths of her own. We wouldn’t have any privacy here, but that didn’t stop me from rolling onto my knees and wedged myself between her open legs. The silk robes she wore fell away from her shins, and her hands found the neck of my tunic and pulled me closer to her. With my chest pressed against hers, I could feel her nipples perk up at my touch. She whined into my mouth as I slid a hand up to touch the side of her breast.

“We won’t have an ounce of privacy in this entire city…” I whispered as I began to kiss down to her jaw, and then to the crook of her neck. “...and I’m fairly certain we’re committing several blasphemies here, even to a Dibellan…”

Morwen took a moment to respond, rolling her hips slowly first as her knees pressed against my thighs. Her eyelids fluttered, before she nodded and motioned me to climb off of her. I stood awkwardly, catching a glimpse of her bare flower under her robe at the crux of her thighs before she slid the silk back over her shins. My arousal was becoming harder to ignore, and I followed her eyes to find that she had discovered it already, barely hidden under my trousers.

“We should, uhm...” she cleared her throat, still panting slightly. I extended a hand to her to help her rise to her feet, which she accepted. “...we should get some rest anyway. Tomorrow Rhori moves on the city, we could be attacking by sunset…”

“You’re right, of course, I’m sor-”

“Don’t,” she didn’t let go of my hand. Instead, she anchored herself to it, pulling closer to me again. “I’ve missed you, too.”


End file.
